My inspiration to engage in public health was drawn from continuous volunteering at the community level since an early age… While growing up in the rural areas of eastern region in Kenya, community health workers would move from home to home doing health promotion on WASH and giving polio vaccines, and I thought this was great!
At this crucial moment for immunisation, considering community perceptions of vaccination has never been more important.
“Vineeta brings with her an impressive background and an array of experience that will be uniquely valuable in leading the Secretariat of the ACTION Global Health Advocacy Partnership. We look forward to working with her in building and strengthening the Partnership and, through it, critical global health outcomes in the world that are urgently needed now and in the final decade toward the global Sustainable Development Goals. We are thrilled to have her onboard.”
After the resounding success of last month’s Global Vaccine Summit, at which more than US $8.8 billion was pledged in support of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for the next 5 years, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment for immunisation. These new commitments are meant to enable Gavi to accelerate the roll out of life-saving vaccines in developing countries by 2025 and contribute to saving 8 million more children’s lives. But with COVID-19 currently stifling routine immunisation campaigns, what will it take to ensure that every child is reached with effective vaccines?
Save the Children and ACTION's new policy brief looks deeper into the impact of immunization, and the importance of immunization equity through the assessment of five countries, showcases the programmatic and financial challenges for health systems and immunization systems in the coming years, provides suggested approaches through primary health care and domestic resource mobilization, and highlights risks and opportunities - showing that ultimately we are not being ambitious enough.
The change in timeline for GPEI wind-down poses a significant opportunity to assess what progress has been made in polio transition planning. We must act now to ensure immunisation coverage rates and immunisation systems are strengthened. RESULTS UK and ACTION’s new policy brief which looks deeper into the seven publically available transition plans, identifies the true cost of transition, unpredictable timelines, assumption of donor support, and a lack of ambition as common themes in the plans.
In our "Champions for Change" workshop, ACTION trained its newest group of media champions; the participants include several pediatricians and a former senator and polio survivor. The eight are buoyed and ready to get started with their work as advocates for child health in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.
CSOs reflected on Gavi’s past and future at the Mid-Term Review. Speaking on the opening plenary panel, Chris Dendys of RESULTS Canada said, “we need to identify better why children are being missed and how we reach them regardless of where they live.”