Partners –

Welcome to Volume II of the Vaccine Delivery Newsletter! Since we wrote to you this spring, 2016 has proven to be a year filled with new developments, a few setbacks and important lessons learned.

The latest WUENIC report on childhood immunization confirms that we’re making overall progress in reaching children with vaccines, but we’re not going far enough in requiring visibility and of that data at the sub-national level. And despite huge strides and more than two years without a single reported case of wild poliovirus, two cases were recently confirmed in Nigeria—proving that our work to strengthen routine immunization is more important and urgent than ever.

Against this backdrop, we bring you the following updates on the work being done in the field by grantees, partners and our team to take the fight forward:

1)  A guest blog on Nigeria Informed Push—a pilot program bringing supply chain innovations to scale in key states in Nigeria—by Kano State Commissioner Dr. Kabiru Ibrahim Getso;

2) A profile on the BID Initiative, a promising project led by PATH and the Zambia and Tanzania Ministries of Health that uses a country-led approach to improve immunization data systems;

3)  Outtakes from an interview with Penny Heaton, Director of Vaccine Development, on the efforts of her team and partners to develop innovative and lower-cost vaccines;

4)  Personal profiles of the members of our Strategy, Planning & Management Team;

5)  A link to the Devex blog featuring my take on the WUENIC vaccination estimates, noted above, and lessons that can be learned from the data experts who map trees New York City, and

6)  A link to Gavi’s annual progress report, published today, and

7)  The latest edition of the Vaccine Delivery Research Digest, a compilation of recently published research related to vaccine delivery published for us by the University of Washington.  Feel free to share it around.

Finally, I would like to make a personal request.  Please take 2 minutes to answer two brief questions in the attached survey, which will help make sure we are tailoring future editions of the newsletter to your interests and needs.

As always, thank you for your commitment and partnership, and I welcome and encourage your feedback.

Best regards,