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1. Gender Equity to Improve Immunization Services

Author:
Katherine E. Bliss and Alicia Carbaugh
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of a strong health workforce to outbreak response, as well as of vaccine delivery to prevent further outbreaks. Women and men providing care, transporting supplies, analyzing data, and delivering vaccines to patients and their families have all contributed to pandemic-related activities while maintaining a focus on routine health programs. Women comprise an estimated two-thirds of the formal health workforce worldwide—and a high percentage of the unpaid health workforce as well. Yet gender inequities, including those related to training, compensation, and professional advancement, limit opportunities for female health workers to perform their duties and develop professionally, with implications for quality of care and health outcomes. By prioritizing gender equity within their own health workforces; gathering data on gender dynamics within the immunization programs they support; and supporting initiatives to train, retain, and advance the careers of female immunization workers, donor governments—including the United States, working with bilateral and multilateral partners—can strengthen quality of care, improve global immunization coverage, and reinforce health security in the long run.
Topic:
Governance, Medicine, Equality, Immunization, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. The future of immunization financing in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:
Miguel Betancourt-Cravioto and Pepe Zhang
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Latin America and Caribbean countries have a long history of effective implementation of national immunization programs (NIPs), which has led to the successful control of infectious diseases such as smallpox, measles, and poliomyelitis, among many others. Yet challenges such as inequity, rising costs, growing population needs, and the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively impacted the operation of NIPs in the region. This has led to a significant reduction in vaccine coverage rates (VCRs), putting the population at risk of severe, preventable diseases. Addressing these and other challenges facing NIPs requires sustained sources of funding that are capable of expansion according to national needs. So far, the region has coped with domestic public resources and the important support of international mechanisms including the Pan American Health Organization’s (PAHO) Revolving Fund (RF). Innovative financing is particularly useful in today’s context of fiscal constraints, as it helps public institutions maintain and enhance immunization programs by supplementing available resources with new sources of funding and/ or expanding the impact of existing financing structures. Considering that immunization is a multidimensional endeavor requiring efficient management of demand, supply, delivery, and many other issues, a holistic, health-system approach to immunization is essential to stimulating innovative financing and maximizing its benefits. This issue brief built upon findings from a private, nonpartisan strategy session as part of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center’s #FutureofHealth Series, which aims to provide a practical, forward-looking approach to target key policy issues at the intersection of health and the economy in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Topic:
Vaccine, Resilience, COVID-19, Society, and Immunization
Political Geography:
Latin America and Caribbean

3. Global Immunization and Gavi: Five Priorities for the Next Five Years

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Cordelia Kenney, and Janeen Madan Keller
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Child vaccination remains among the most cost-effective uses of public and aid monies.[1] In a highly contested funding environment where priorities must be set for the allocation of scarce concessional resources, investment in expanding the availability and coverage of cost-effective vaccination must come at the top of the list. Gavi’s mission—saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing equitable use of vaccines—remains highly relevant. Gavi and its partners have made enormous progress towards increasing equity in the introduction of vaccines; children living in the lowest-income countries now have access to the same set of vaccines as those living in high-income countries. Gavi and partners have also contributed to increased coverage; immunization rates are higher in Burundi and Rwanda, for example, than in many places in the United States and Europe. Yet the effects of under-immunization anywhere can have global implications everywhere, as recent outbreaks illustrate. New or dormant threats are also a new reality—newly vaccine-preventable diseases like Ebola or virulent flu strains can spread swiftly and lethally in an interconnected world.
Topic:
Health, Public Health, Vaccine, and Immunization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. The Gavi Mid-Term Review: Progress to Date and Prospects for 2021 and Beyond

Author:
Katherine E. Bliss
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, is making good progress toward meeting its current targets and is adapting its programs to continue delivering lifesaving products to the world’s poorest populations in the face of significant external pressures and challenges. However, as Gavi looks ahead to its next strategic phase and considers how conflicts and humanitarian crises, climate change, urbanization, and population growth will affect its work, it will need to evolve its partnership model and market-shaping approaches to ensure that the large numbers of poor children, including, potentially, many who live in non-eligible countries, are fully immunized. The Alliance highlighted its accomplishments and challenges faced thus far during the 2016-2020 work phase at a mid-term review held December 2018 in Abu Dhabi. The more than 300 participants included heads of state and ministers of health, as well as representatives of vaccine manufacturers, private sector organizations, donor governments, and implementing agencies. Over plenaries, panels, and breakaway sessions the diverse mix of Gavi partners considered ways to make the Alliance more effective in a changing geopolitical environment as it gears up for its next replenishment, to be held in 2020.
Topic:
Public Health, Vaccine, Medicine, and Immunization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Enhancing U.S. Leadership in a New Era of Global Immunization

Author:
Nellie Bristol, Michaela Simoneau, and Katherine E. Bliss
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The U.S. government plays a leading role in supporting immunization services worldwide, an investment that helps increase global stability and prosperity while protecting Americans from potentially epidemic-prone diseases. While tremendous progress has been made in improving vaccine coverage, momentum has stalled over the last decade. New approaches are needed to reach populations that chronically lack access to health services and those in volatile and conflict-affected settings. The authors offer recommendations to enhance U.S. policy as key global immunization partners are developing new strategies to expand global vaccine coverage.
Topic:
Public Health, Humanitarian Crisis, Pandemic, and Immunization
Political Geography:
Global Focus