We have these amazing new vaccines that can save the lives of millions of children, but the health services through which they are delivered are poorly resourced and rely on weak infrastructure.
They are also massively understaffed — there’s a global shortage of at least 3.5 million health workers who are needed to put the jab in the child’s arm.
Much like the members of the A-Team, I love it when a plan comes together. But while reflecting on the Decade of Vaccines Action Plan on my journey home from the regional consultation, my thoughts turned to: What’s Next?
It would be a missed opportunity if the plan is adopted only to later flounder because people don’t know how to get started. I decided to use this blog to do a little ‘blue-sky thinking’, if you’ll excuse the business speak, and think in terms of actions.
It was something a little different for me to be invited to an immunisation conference aimed predominantly at two regions that rarely come onto my radar — the Middle East and North Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe. This part of the world faces its own unique set of health challenges.
With the promise of change, high energy, and good times ahead, the fact that Chinese New Year fell the day before an important date for many of us working on immunisation seems like a good sign.
Key points from Save the Children and the GAVI Civil Society Constituency’s statement to the World Health Organization Executive Board on the draft of the Global Vaccine Action Plan.
I am in Geneva this week attending the World Health Organisation’s Executive Board meeting. Today I had the opportunity to make a statement in front of government officials from around the world and the WHO’s Director-General, which was nerve-wracking!
Nakale missed out harvesting her sorghum this year and is now scavenging for lalok (wild fruits) to make ends meet. The lalok fruit Nakale gathers from trees close to her boma (village) for her and her children are of little nutritional value. The fruit can cause diarrhoea in children, but there are few alternatives.
It’s 19-month-old Osman Abdi’s third day in Save the Children’s stabilisation centre. It all begun with what mothers in this area refer to as a ‘normal cough’, which usually lasts a few days then disappears. But time failed to bring reprieve and Osman broke a fever. Although his illnesses have sucked the little life left in him, there’s a reason to smile.
Driving around parts of Delhi gives one of the clearest impressions that India is a big booming economy. The expanded metro, hordes of cars in the road, busy shops and big houses all point to rising affluence. From one of the main roads, a quick turn into Sanjay Colony gives a view of very different world. There is no road to speak of, make-shift structures abound and a proper sanitation system is obviously absent.
Something pretty historic happened in South Africa recently. Midwives from all over the world, who had came together as a professional body to consult the experts, and each other, on the latest in midwifery. Nothing particularly historic about that – they do it every year, apparently. Except this time, they were marching for the rights of mothers and babies.
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