EYE Strategy September newsletter 

7th EYE Strategy Annual Partners’ Meeting 

The next EYE Annual Partners' Meeting will be an in-person meeting on 12th to 14th March 2024 with live streaming for those that can't attend. The location is yet to be confirmed, but is likely to be held in one of our high-risk African countries. Registration details will be sent out in due course.  

Sub-national yellow fever risk analysis workshop, Ethiopia  

EYE Strategy Ethiopian sub-national yellow fever risk analysis workshop, Addis Ababa, October 2023 

With the support of the EYE Secretariat, World Health Organization (WHO), and key partners, a sub-national yellow fever (YF) risk analysis was conducted in 2022 to estimate the risk levels in Ethiopia and to guide YF vaccine introduction into the routine immunization (RI) schedule.  

All ten regional states and two city administrations were included in the analysis. All regions have shown positive cumulative risk scores, indicating the country is within some degree of risk of YF infection.    

A workshop was held to discuss the findings and discuss EYE implementation in Ethiopia. We thank our partners and colleagues in Ethiopia for a successful workshop and productive discussions. To read the full web story published by WHO Ethiopia, click here.

Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA 2030) scorecard 

Number of large or disruptive vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks (global) - from the Immunization Agenda 2030 scorecard

The Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA 2030) Scorecard brings attention to and enables strategic actions around 18 vaccine performance indicators. Click here to view the new data showing resilient immunization systems recovering from COVID-19-related disruptions. 

The WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization met recently to review progress under the IA 2030. Advocates around the world are now empowered to explore and interact with the latest data on immunization performance.  

Explore immunization programme trends at the global, regional, and country level with the IA 2030 Scorecard, which was recently refreshed with new data. The scorecard brings attention to and enables strategic actions around 18 key vaccine performance indicators.  

Coordinated by USAID MOMENTUM country and global leadership under the IA 2030 Monitoring and Evaluation Work Group, the scorecard is an initiative led by specialists from the WHO, CDC, UNICEF, and UN Foundation.  

The data show that 50 million future deaths have been averted globally from vaccination delivered by 2030. Yellow fever has a declining trend in the number of large or disruptive outbreaks and is on track to meet its IA 2030 target. Click here for the scorecard. 

Country updates

Reactive Vaccination Campaigns (RVCs)  

Images from the reactive YF vaccination campaign launch in Mbaiki district, Central African Republic, September 2023.   

Central African Republic (CAR) 

Following a confirmed case of yellow fever in a worker in a forest area in Mbaiki district, an RVC was planned to target ~233,400 people for protection. Mbaiki district has seen an increase in population movement, including forestry workers, artisanal miners, and workers in caterpillar camps, who come from other districts for economic activities.  

The RVC was launched on 25th September 2023 in Mbaiki District and was completed on 2nd October 2023. Out of 26,740 seasonal workers targeted (including people from the pygmy ethnic group), 19,828 were vaccinated, which represents a 74% coverage rate of yellow fever vaccination.   

One of the key successes of this campaign has been specific communication activities to raise awareness of the vaccination campaign amongst seasonal workers, resulting in good coverage and reducing the risk of transportation of the disease into other districts.  

Preventive mass vaccination campaigns (PMVCs)  

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)       

Yellow fever vaccination campaigns in Lomami, Kasai, Central Kasai, Haut Lomami, Haut Katanga and Haut-Uélé will be combined with measles round 1 for improved efficiency and will begin in October 2023. 13.6 million people will be targeted for protection against yellow fever in this campaign.     

Further PMVCs in Kongo Central, Kwango, Kwilu, and Mai Ndombe are due to take place in November 2023 and target ~11,354,159 people.  

Uganda      

The first phase of Uganda’s multi-year yellow fever PMVC covering 51 districts in six regions, (Kabale, Kabarole, Hoima, Lira, Gulu, and Arua) is almost complete. Gaps in vaccination in this phase have been identified and follow-up activities are planned for October 2023.   

The campaign has targeted ~13,397,640 people, which amounts to 93% of the population in five of the 51 districts.    

Phase two will target ~16.4 million people in the following regions: Moroto, Mbarara, Kampala, Masaka and Soroti and is due to be implemented in February 2024. Phase three will cover the following regions: Mubende, Jinja and Mbale.   

Persons of ages 9 months to 60 years were included in the campaign, as well as the refugee population.  

Since 2000, Dr Weldegebriel has worked with WHO on polio eradication, measles and epidemic meningitis elimination programmes, as well as the EYE Strategy. 

He currently coordinates sentinel surveillance of diseases targeted by new vaccines (rotavirus diarrhea and pediatric bacterial meningitis) in WHO East and Southern Africa, based in Harare, Zimbabwe.  

Dr Weldegebriel has extensive experience in responding to public health emergencies and was part of the Ebola response in 2014 in West Africa and the COVID-19 pandemic response in South Africa in 2020 and 2021. He has received multiple awards for recognition of his work and co-authored more than 50 papers in international journals.   

Dr Weldegebriel is a member of the EYE Regional Implementation Team in Africa and provides immunization expertise and guidance (across all applicable diseases, including yellow fever) to the countries covered by the WHO inter-country support team for East Africa.

Publications 

Engagement of community health workers to improve immunization coverage through addressing inequities and enhancing data quality and use is a feasible and effective approach: An implementation study in Uganda

Authors: Pamela Bakkabulindi (EYE Strategy Immunization Consultant), Immaculate Ampeire, Lillian Ayebale, Paul Mubiri, Marta Feletto, Simon Muhumuza

Background

Uganda, like many other developing countries, faces the challenges of unreliable estimates for its immunization target population.

Strengthening immunization data quality and its use for improving immunization program performance are critical steps toward improving coverage and equity of immunization programmes.

The goal of this study was to determine the effectiveness of using community health workers (CHWs) to obtain quality and reliable data that can be used for planning and evidence-based response actions. To read the full publication, click here.