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In Jan 2011 the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and its partners are rolling out a new vaccine to prevent pneumonia in Kenya. In the developing world, pneumonia kills in the neighborhood of 1.4 million kids every year. Pneumococcal, the deadliest strain of that illness (and a major cause of what we might call “regular” pneumonia), kills 800,000.
Kenya's pneumococcal vaccine's official launch date is Feb 14, but we were able to photograph a clinic near the Kibera slum in Nairobi that already started providing the vaccine this week.
This health center is the Langata (sometimes called Kibera) District’s regional distribution center for the 36 clinics within the district. They collect all of the vaccines from the Regional Disbursement Center and, since they must maintain the cold chain to ensure the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, haul them back to Langata in well-used, white Styrofoam coolers. There, they are stored in an upright, avocado green refrigerator. But, it works and that’s what counts. They are then divided up and dispersed to the 27 clinics in the District that have trained personnel to give the vaccines.
In Jan 2011 the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and its partners are rolling out a new vaccine to prevent pneumonia in Kenya. In the developing world, pneumonia kills in the neighborhood of 1.4 million kids every year. Pneumococcal, the deadliest strain of that illness (and a major cause of what we might call “regular” pneumonia), kills 800,000.
Kenya's pneumococcal vaccine's official launch date is Feb 14, but we were able to photograph a clinic near the Kibera slum in Nairobi that already started providing the vaccine this week.
This health center is the Langata (sometimes called Kibera) District’s regional distribution center for the 36 clinics within the district. They collect all of the vaccines from the Regional Disbursement Center and, since they must maintain the cold chain to ensure the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, haul them back to Langata in well-used, white Styrofoam coolers. There, they are stored in an upright, avocado green refrigerator. But, it works and that’s what counts. They are then divided up and dispersed to the 27 clinics in the District that have trained personnel to give the vaccines.
Visita de profissionais de saúde às residências de moradores das comunidades ribeirinhas de Mazagão, Ilha de Santana e Macapá, no estado do Amapá, região norte do Brasil, para vacinação contra o sarampo.
Visita de profesionales de la salud a los hogares de los habitantes de las comunidades ribereñas de Mazagão, Ilha de Santana y Macapá, en el estado de Amapá, región norte de Brasil, para la vacunación contra el sarampión.
Foto: Karina Zambrana - OPAS/OMS
Visita de profissionais de saúde às residências de moradores das comunidades ribeirinhas de Mazagão, Ilha de Santana e Macapá, no estado do Amapá, região norte do Brasil, para vacinação contra o sarampo.
Visita de profesionales de la salud a los hogares de los habitantes de las comunidades ribereñas de Mazagão, Ilha de Santana y Macapá, en el estado de Amapá, región norte de Brasil, para la vacunación contra el sarampión.
Foto: Karina Zambrana - OPAS/OMS
At a maternal and child clinic at La Fossette, one of the largest in Cap-Haitian, patients arrive for regular check-ups as well as vaccinations. Four health workers work at the site, either vaccinating or weighing children. The clinic is held in a building in the process of being built.
Photo Credit: Karen Kasmauski/MCSP and Jhpiego
Gebeyanu Girmay brings her twins Ebabiye Mulugeta and Birtukan Mulugeta for their
vaccination to the Mindikru IDP site where UNICEF supported mobile teams that provide
health and nutrition services. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
One-year-old Mahlet Geta gets her vaccination in Aba Yohannes village. For months health
services were disrupted in Aba Yonannes because of conflict and Mahlet was vaccinated for
the first time. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
Boys stand in line to be vaccinated through the smallpox eradication and measles control program in West Africa in 1968. While smallpox has been eradicated, measles remains a leading cause of death among young children, even though a safe and cost-effective vaccine is available, the World Health Organization says.
Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
Via:
www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/05/14/991201743/ph...
For a timeline of vaccinations:
Health Extension Worker Mariam Kegne crosses the hills carrying her vaccine cold box and is
ready for the immunization campaign. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (Dec. 30, 2020) – U.S. Navy Capt. Randy Peck, middle right, commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), and Capt. Doug Langenberg, middle left, executive officer of the John C. Stennis, receive the COVID-19 vaccine at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) Immunizations Clinic, Dec. 30. NMCP is supporting the fleet by providing the voluntary vaccination within the DoD phased approach to prioritizing mission-essential personnel in receiving the vaccine. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Dylan M. Kinee/Released)
After checking in and receiving immunization cards, the mothers listen to a Pampers nurse teach the basics of infant care and the advantages of Pampers diapers. "Most of the mothers come from remote areas, and they really don't know anything about how to take care of their babies...how to take care of their baby's skin, how to go for immunization, how to breastfeed," says Mary Rugambwa, a representative of Procter and Gamble. "So it's the duty of the Pampers nurse to explain the details of how to take care of their babies.
In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
Best practices in nutrition are promoted as well. A health worker adds a micronutrient powder to a meal for a girl toddler, held by her mother. © UNICEF/NYHQ2012-1732/BRIAN SOKOL
Aerial photo of carloads of people waiting for H1N1 immunizations at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, KY.
Submitted by: Drs. Paul McKinney and Ruth Carrico, faculty at the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences. (The photo was taken by Mr. Matt Stone, and published on November 12, 2009 in The Courier-Journal. Reprinted with permission.) The University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences (SPHIS) played a key role in the health department's H1N1 immunization clinic located at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium on November 11-12, 2009.
The first day alone, 12,613 people received the vaccine- the largest single day event according to available data.
In total, more than 19,000 people were inoculated against the H1N1 virus, with an average rate of 908 people per hour.
Dr. Ruth Carrico, an assistant professor at the SPHIS provided oversight for training and medical protocol and public health students served as vaccine information specialists. SPHIS graduate students Mr. Pretesh Parmar and Ms. Caitlin Shelton did advance planning and worked on the scene to keep track of and manage the details. This included working with researchers from the university's Speed School of Engineering to map out the location and use simulation to efficiently guide the traffic and determine equipment and volunteers.
"Collaborating with several departments within the university and the Department of Public Health and Wellness was essential to making the clinic a success," said Mr. Parmar.
Participation in the clinic was likely one of the largest volunteer efforts in university history and evidence of ongoing collaboration between the SPHIS and local agencies.
Village Samho, Samho Block, Dist. Begusarai, Bihar, INDIA. Ritu Rani, Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM), immunize a child inside Anganwadi centre in Begusarai, Bihar. Social Mobilisation Network (SMNet), a UNICEF-supported initiative which mobilizes the community at every level village, block, district, region, state to get their children immunized from basic diseases as part of the governments routine immunization programmes. SMNet was started essentially in the 2000s as part of the government's anti-Polio campaigns. SMNet officers thus operate at every level, starting from the village level (where there's a Community Mobilisation Coordinator, typically belonging to the village), to the block, district, sub-region, and region, where there are corresponding mobilizing coordinators for every block, district, sub-region etc. SMNet is premised on the idea that people from within the community are the best ones to mobilize others in their people be it their village, their block or district. But this is where officers such as Bijay Ranjan prove that familiarity is merely an added advantage to the mobilizing process: the real trick lies in effective communication. It is this that made SMNet successful to the extent that SMNET Bihar officers have gone on mobilization drives to other states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh etc. Although SMNet started as a tool to fight Polio campaign, over the years it has transcended its original definition, and become a pool of human resource that can be realigned to any other social/developmental goal. In fact, as of 2015, exactly a year after the WHO declared India as Polio Free, the SMNet is busy tackling diarrhea, malnutrition, hygiene and breast-feeding, all of which are critical to keeping Polio at bay. Immunization in India continues to be an ongoing challenge.
UNICEF India/2015/Dhiraj Singh.
At a maternal and child clinic at La Fossette, one of the largest in Cap-Haitian, patients arrive for regular check-ups as well as vaccinations. Four health workers work at the site, either vaccinating or weighing children. The clinic is held in a building in the process of being built.
Photo Credit: Karen Kasmauski/MCSP and Jhpiego
Routine Immunization (RI) at a D-type health center in Firozabad...UNICEF India/2010/Gurinder Osan.
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In Jan 2011 the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and its partners are rolling out a new vaccine to prevent pneumonia in Kenya. In the developing world, pneumonia kills in the neighborhood of 1.4 million kids every year. Pneumococcal, the deadliest strain of that illness (and a major cause of what we might call ìregularî pneumonia), kills 800,000. Kenya's pneumococcal vaccine's official launch date is Feb 14, but we were able to photograph a clinic near the Kibera slum in Nairobi that already started providing the vaccine this week. This health center is the Langata (sometimes called Kibera) Districtís regional distribution center for the 36 clinics within the district. They collect all of the vaccines from the Regional Disbursement Center and, since they must maintain the cold chain to ensure the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, haul them back to Langata in well-used, white Styrofoam coolers. There, they are stored in an upright, avocado green refrigerator. But, it works and thatís what counts. They are then divided up and dispersed to the 27 clinics in the District that have trained personnel to give the vaccines.
www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/what-is-covid-actually-d...
What Is COVID Actually Doing to Our Immune Systems?
When the immune system goes awry, it’s bad news. A wonky immune system might mean that you’re more likely to catch colds and flus, or be infected by other pathogens—and less likely to shake them off. It might mean that your body fails to detect and destroy growing tumors. It might even mean that the body turns against itself, leading to chronic autoimmune conditions like arthritis or Crohn’s disease. The fallout of immune system dysfunction on the human body is widespread and unpredictable—which is why it was so concerning in 2020 when evidence began to amass that COVID-19 seemed to be disrupting human immunology. So much so, in fact, that John Wherry, director of the Penn Medicine Immune Health Institute, summed it up this way to Kaiser Health News: “COVID is deranging the immune system.”
Most of the early immunological evidence—the evidence that Wherry was referring to—came from patients who died or suffered severe COVID. Now, three years of infections and immunizations later, severe COVID is getting mercifully less common; a brush with the virus may well feel unremarkable. And a new idea about how COVID can affect immunity has emerged: that even mild infections routinely cause consequential damage to our bodies’ defenses. This quiet degradation was memorably termed “immunity theft” by one evolutionary biologist speculating on why this fall’s respiratory virus season seemed more severe than usual.
There are plenty of reasons to not want to get COVID over and over, but the prospect of an increasingly damaged immune system is a particularly compelling one. Throughout the pandemic, scientific evidence has mounted that mild COVID infections may be doing something to our immune systems—prompting many on social media to hyperbolically describe COVID as “airborne AIDS.” But the lessons that scientists are drawing from their research are nuanced—and the larger picture says more about the sturdiness of our collective immunity than anything else.
There are a few ways scientists can probe COVID’s impact on immune systems. One is to investigate how well the immune system can rally against a second go-round with SARS-CoV-2. At the start of the pandemic, Shane Crotty, of the La Jolla Institute of Immunology, published some of the first papers looking at the immune response to COVID. “There was a lot of concern about how strange it might look,” he said. But really, “it looks as we would largely expect for a respiratory viral infection.” Antibodies recognize and subdue the virus, while immune memory cells linger about, ready to gear up for the next infection. A similar response is seen after vaccination. Because of this robust immune response, SARS-CoV-2 infections are now, on average, shorter and milder. So far this year, COVID hospitalizations have not surged, despite high rates of infection. Some of this attenuation may be due to a meeker (arguably) omicron variant, but it’s more likely because, with respect to fending off COVID at least, our immune systems are working just as they’re supposed to.
But there’s another way to think about COVID’s immunological impact. What if SARS-CoV-2 infection fortifies our immune systems in very specific ways such that we can stave off severe COVID, but precipitates subtler, long-term immunological changes that leave us more vulnerable to other infections or even chronic disease? The data here is murkier.
Scientists know that during severe cases of COVID, things go immunologically haywire. A study from the pandemic’s early days, in January of 2020, profiled 41 hospitalized COVID patients in China and found that 63 percent of them had low numbers of lymphocytes, a critical type of disease-fighting white blood cell. A postmortem study found that patients who had died of COVID lacked germinal centers, which teach immune cells to mount a long-lasting response to infection. A few studies—which looked at hospitalized patients, and cells in petri dishes—have claimed that SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect immune cells, and others have found that the virus can stir up “autoantibodies,” or immunological turncoats that blitz the patient’s own proteins and cells. Wherry is a co-author on one such study; this is the kind of “deranging” he was talking about. Immune system derangement appears to be what can make some severe cases of COVID so horrible.
Since then, many other studies have unearthed immunological oddities with worrisome names like “T cell exhaustion” and “dendritic cell deficiencies”; sometimes the oddities are seen in patients with just mild COVID infections. These studies can fuel scary-sounding headlines (“Is COVID prematurely aging our immune systems?”). Their top-line results are often circulated as validation of widespread and ongoing immune dysregulation. But that’s not really true.
To understand why these studies aren’t validation requires going a bit in the methodological weeds. In most of them, researchers take a group of patients who suffered from COVID—often a mix of mild, moderate, and severe cases—and find a group of “matched controls,” or uninfected people with similar health and demographic profiles. Then, they train the power of modern biotechnology on the immune system, scanning hundreds or thousands of cells, genes, and molecules for anything that looks different in COVID patients vs. their never-infected counterparts. The data sets are huge, and sophisticated machine-learning algorithms are often deployed to sift signal from noise.
These are impressive techniques, but it’s important to keep in mind the purpose of these studies, and their limitations. Most are conducted in small groups of patients who may or may not be representative of the population as a whole. And from the small group, researchers collect lots and lots of data. This style of research is exploratory, designed to pick out avenues for future and more robust study. Some of the leads may pan out, but many—if not most—findings will just end up being natural variation between people’s bodies, popping up by chance in those who had COVID.
Few, if any, studies have information on the state of patients’ own immune systems before they were infected with COVID, making an apples-to-apples comparison of what COVID does to a particular person’s immune system impossible. Robust longitudinal data starting prior to the pandemic would show “whether we’ve seen large-scale changes in immune fitness,” Wherry told me—and we just don’t have it. In its absence, “the evidence of a long-term impact on the immune system in fully recovered COVID patients, whether mild or severe, is really pretty thin.”
“There are some diseases where there is a clear immune signature that would make me worried,” Crotty, the immunologist at the La Jolla Institute, said. “For example, if you catch measles, you end up more susceptible to other infections for several months. But I haven’t seen anything in our data or other studies that makes me worried about long-term impacts on immunity to other infections.”
Even if the laboratory studies aren’t conclusive, there is some real-world evidence that mild COVID infections can throw the immune system out of whack. The latest is a large observational study posted on a preprint server just last week by German researchers. At first glance, the findings are scary—they found a whopping 43 percent increase in the onset of autoimmune disease in COVID patients compared with noninfected controls. But it’s important to put that number in context. First, the infections were in 2020, before vaccines. Second, that 43 percent is relative risk. In absolute terms, the study found that 1.1 percent of people developed autoimmune disease after catching COVID; 0.8 percent of controls developed autoimmune disease during the same period. That’s a 0.3 percent difference. The study size was huge, so that small difference could very well be real and a cause for concern on a population level. (The study has not yet been peer-reviewed.) But it’s still a fairly rare outcome.
Less rare is long COVID, and it’s possible immune dysfunction could be linked to this worrisome condition. Scientists who have looked for obvious signs of how immunological dysfunction produces long COVID symptoms haven’t found it. “If there’s chronic immune activation that’s damaging tissue to produce the symptoms, then we should be able to detect that tissue damage. And that was what we couldn’t do,” said Michael Sneller, an infectious-disease specialist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who is running one of the more comprehensive longitudinal studies on long COVID patients.
But long COVID is far from solved, so scientists are still probing for clues about how and why it comes about—this is where some of that exploratory research based on small sample sizes and broad swaths of data may prove valuable.
In the late 2000s, researchers in Vietnam found that infection with the typhoid bacterium left an imprint on the immune system for at least a year. When COVID hit, David Lynn, a co-author on that paper and a professor at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute and Flinders University, put together a grant application to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 did the same. Lynn and his team followed 69 patients in Australia with COVID infections ranging from mild to very severe. In contrast to standard clinical tests, Lynn used newer, sophisticated molecular techniques that can pick up much subtler signals. With a more fine-toothed comb, Lynn was able to find that almost every patient showed signs of a perturbed immune system at the molecular level, compared with healthy controls—but in most patients, these perturbations faded away after a few months. In a third of them, the immune system remained in a state of dysregulation. Many of those patients were later identified as having long COVID. “That was quite remarkable to us,” Lynn told me. Other studies back up Lynn’s findings, including one study posted on a preprint server by renowned Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki, whose team was able to predict which patients had developed long COVID by profiling immunological data at the molecular level alone.
One possible explanation for this small-scale perturbation is that long COVID’s symptoms could be the result of a hidden confrontation between the immune system and active virus ensconced deep in the body’s tissues—like combat among soldiers in remote outposts who don’t yet know the war is over. Other explanations include autoantibodies, reactivation of other latent viruses, or difficult-to-detect tissue damage from microclots. But these hypotheses remain speculation. And these newer molecular techniques haven’t been as widely used to investigate the immunology of other pathogens, meaning it’s unclear whether SARS-CoV-2 is even that exceptional. “I think all of the studies, including ours, are just giving hints to what’s going on,” Lynn said. “I don’t think we have a smoking gun at the moment.”
Importantly, since none of these studies have pre-pandemic snapshots of participant immune systems, it can’t be ruled out that patients may be more susceptible to developing long COVID if they already had a less-than-healthy immune system, muddling cause and consequence. Chansavath Phetsouphanh, an immunologist at the University of New South Wales’ Kirby Institute, was lead author on an Australian study that found hints of immunological dysfunction at least eight months after infection, particularly in patients with long COVID. “We know there are preexisting medical conditions that can make individuals more susceptible to developing long COVID,” Phetsouphanh said. This is a clue that “there may already be dysregulation of the immune system prior to getting infected.” As scientists work to untangle cause and effect, their research highlights the importance of health care and public health measures for people with compromised immune systems, whatever the cause.
At this point, the best we can say is that sensitive scientific tests can detect differences in the immune systems of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 compared with the ever-dwindling cohort of those who have never been infected at all. Whether these differences—which vary from study to study—add up to a molecular “immune signature” of COVID remains to be seen. Any clues may be particularly valuable in untangling why a subset of patients have symptoms that last a few months or longer. But to conclude that these detectable differences translate to real-world consequences is overreach. Further, to claim that COVID is destroying all of our immune systems, or is inflicting the direct and intense immune damage of an HIV infection, is absurd.
Wherry, the Penn Medicine immunologist, told me this—I think it’s worth laying out the quote in full:
We’re not seeing evidence that this one virus has changed our immune system’s ability to keep us healthy on a large scale. There are 7 billion people on the planet who are doing fairly well. And we’re not seeing opportunistic infections, we’re not seeing huge increases in cancers that need immune surveillance, we’re just not seeing the kinds of things that we saw in other settings where the immune system was compromised, or dysregulated, because of an infectious disease, or because of toxins, or because of radiation, that we’ve seen in a variety of human events over the past 100 years.
To claim that COVID could potentially discombobulate immune systems isn’t to peddle pseudoscience. People respond to infections very differently, and it’s worth continuing research into what COVID might be doing to some people’s ability to fight future infections, or how it might trigger chronic autoimmune disease. Even if long-lasting immune dysfunction develops in only a very small percentage of people, that still means a lot of individual suffering and a major toll on families and communities. In addition, noted Lynn, from a public health perspective, “that is a large additional burden on health-care systems around the world.” Further, the intense focus on the post-viral immunological effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection may shed light on what can happen after other infections—the possibility of long-lasting immunological changes in response to pathogens may be more common than previously thought. But researchers emphasize that even if COVID routinely tinkers with the immune system, our body’s defenses are stubbornly resilient. “Think of the immune system like a Boeing aircraft,” said Lynn. “For it to crash, you need multiple things to go wrong. Just one, or even a few things, is unlikely to be sufficient to bring the immune system down.”
Four-month older Galane Shumai in the arms of her mother waiting to receive a vaccine at Chalaba Silassie health post Bishoftu, Oromia Region Tuesday, 6 August 2019. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2019/Mulugeta Ayene
One-year-old Mahlet Geta gets her vaccination in Aba Yohannes village. For months health services were disrupted in Aba Yonannes because of conflict and Mahlet was vaccinated for
the first time. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
HM2 Christopher Rafanan, Hospital Corpsman in the Preventive Medicine Department at Naval Health Clinic Hawaii (NHCH), provides pre-immunization screening for personnel receiving the second dose of the Pfizer BionNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 8, 2020 at Bloch Arena on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. NHCH is following the Department of Defense's (DoD) phased, standardized, and coordinated approach to administering COVID-19 vaccines. The strategy was developed in collaboration with Operation Warp Speed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the DOD’s COVID Task Force assessment of unique mission requirements.
Bayush Ayalew, a member of the village development army, helps out health workers during a vaccination campaign in Aba Yohannes village. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
The 13th Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) will be celebrated from April 25th to May 2nd, 2015. The regional slogan for VWA 2015 is “Boost your power! Get vaccinated!” Vaccines are weakened or killed pathogens that help your immune system fight diseases. Vaccines do not make you sick, but prepare your body to fight off disease when exposed to full strength pathogens in the future. Vaccines boost the power of your immune system and fight off more than 20 different vaccine-preventable diseases. To read more on how vaccines boost your power, check out: www.paho.org/vwa/
All British Columbians are encouraged to get immunized and reduce the chance of getting the flu and passing it on to others.The influenza vaccine will be available throughout the province by early November at public health clinics, physicians’ offices, travel clinics and pharmacies.
Learn more: news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016HLTH0075-002094
In Jan 2011 the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and its partners are rolling out a new vaccine to prevent pneumonia in Kenya. In the developing world, pneumonia kills in the neighborhood of 1.4 million kids every year. Pneumococcal, the deadliest strain of that illness (and a major cause of what we might call “regular” pneumonia), kills 800,000.
Kenya's pneumococcal vaccine's official launch date is Feb 14, but we were able to photograph a clinic near the Kibera slum in Nairobi that already started providing the vaccine this week.
This health center is the Langata (sometimes called Kibera) District’s regional distribution center for the 36 clinics within the district. They collect all of the vaccines from the Regional Disbursement Center and, since they must maintain the cold chain to ensure the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, haul them back to Langata in well-used, white Styrofoam coolers. There, they are stored in an upright, avocado green refrigerator. But, it works and that’s what counts. They are then divided up and dispersed to the 27 clinics in the District that have trained personnel to give the vaccines.
In Jan 2011 the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and its partners are rolling out a new vaccine to prevent pneumonia in Kenya. In the developing world, pneumonia kills in the neighborhood of 1.4 million kids every year. Pneumococcal, the deadliest strain of that illness (and a major cause of what we might call ìregularî pneumonia), kills 800,000. Kenya's pneumococcal vaccine's official launch date is Feb 14, but we were able to photograph a clinic near the Kibera slum in Nairobi that already started providing the vaccine this week. This health center is the Langata (sometimes called Kibera) Districtís regional distribution center for the 36 clinics within the district. They collect all of the vaccines from the Regional Disbursement Center and, since they must maintain the cold chain to ensure the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, haul them back to Langata in well-used, white Styrofoam coolers. There, they are stored in an upright, avocado green refrigerator. But, it works and thatís what counts. They are then divided up and dispersed to the 27 clinics in the District that have trained personnel to give the vaccines.
Health Extension Worker Mariam Kegne (right) and her colleagues climb the hills carrying
her vaccine cold box and are ready for the immunization campaign. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
18-year-old Tejnesh Haile carrying her child at the Mindikru IDP site. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
H.E. Dr. Kebede Worku (center) inspecting the immunization records at Feedho Health Post, Fafan Zone, Somali Region during the Polio NIDs Campaign, 10 February 2015. Standing second from left is Dr. Omar Mohamed Farah, Somali Region Health Bureau Head, to his right is Dr. Pierre Mpele-Kilebou, WHO Representative to Ethiopia and at far right is, Dr. Muse Soyan, UNICEF Regional EPI/Polio Consultant, Somali Region. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2015/Getachew
Gebeyanu Girmay brings her twins Ebabiye Mulugeta and Birtukan Mulugeta for their
vaccination to the Mindikru IDP site where UNICEF supported mobile teams that provide
health and nutrition services. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
Bayush Ayalew, a member of the village development army, helps out health workers during a vaccination campaign in Aba Yohannes village. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
Bethlehem Worku arranges vaccines for Health Extension Worker Mariam Kegne at Sekota Health Centre. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
Village Bijulia, Samho Block, Dist. Begusarai, Bihar, INDIA. Vijay Ranjan, block mobilisation coordinater, (in white cap), talks with women as he expalins Diarrhea prevention inside Anganwadi centre in Begusarai, Bihar. Social Mobilisation Network (SMNet), a UNICEF-supported initiative which mobilizes the community at every level village, block, district, region, state to get their children immunized from basic diseases as part of the governments routine immunization programmes. SMNet was started essentially in the 2000s as part of the government's anti-Polio campaigns. SMNet officers thus operate at every level, starting from the village level (where there's a Community Mobilisation Coordinator, typically belonging to the village), to the block, district, sub-region, and region, where there are corresponding mobilizing coordinators for every block, district, sub-region etc. SMNet is premised on the idea that people from within the community are the best ones to mobilize others in their people be it their village, their block or district. But this is where officers such as Bijay Ranjan prove that familiarity is merely an added advantage to the mobilizing process: the real trick lies in effective communication. It is this that made SMNet successful to the extent that SMNET Bihar officers have gone on mobilization drives to other states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh etc. Although SMNet started as a tool to fight Polio campaign, over the years it has transcended its original definition, and become a pool of human resource that can be realigned to any other social/developmental goal. In fact, as of 2015, exactly a year after the WHO declared India as Polio Free, the SMNet is busy tackling diarrhea, malnutrition, hygiene and breast-feeding, all of which are critical to keeping Polio at bay. Immunization in India continues to be an ongoing challenge.
UNICEF India/2015/Dhiraj Singh.
Tetanus, hepatitis A and B, influenza, small pox, anthrax and typhoid are just a few examples of immunizations required for military members. These immunizations are a critical part of maintaining force readiness.
One-year-old Mahlet Geta gets her vaccination in Aba Yohannes village. For months health
services were disrupted in Aba Yonannes because of conflict and Mahlet was vaccinated for
the first time. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
Outreach teams are launched in Kinshasa to help increase COVID-19 vaccination.
Photo credit: Edna Harimenshi/PATH
Jilab Health Center is supported by UNICEF and the Ministry of Health through donations by the Government of Sweden. Maimuna Hussein (wearing burgundy headscarf and dark glasses), Head of Health Center and Nurse Services. They do immunization and nutrition social mobilization, mother and child maternal health 24-hour services, antenatal care, postnatal care. UNICEF supports nutrition, vaccination and general support. Catchment area is I 27,271 people. Some people come from 6 kms away. She says that 99 per cent of mothers get their children vaccinated once they have the consultations. Some community members challenge getting children vaccinated but when there is an outbreak, they realize that the vaccines are necessary. It’s usually fathers that resist because they are away at work when the mobilizers come or when the mom goes to the clinic and gets educated about vaccinations. She said that spreading the information about vaccines should be increased through radio and SMS.
The Jilab Health Center vaccinates around 200 children below 5 years old. They also scan and treat children for SAM. In June they screened 709 children and admitted 21. Due to the drought there was a campaign to teach families about using the MUAC to screen there children at home and this is helping to catch malnutrition early.
The Main Hospital in this area is 8-10 kms away so when Maimuna refers a mom out, she worries that they might not make it there. She wishes they had an ambulance to be able to transport those who need it. ©UNICEF Somalia/2022/Lisa Hill
After a long day of work vaccinating hundreds of children, Health Extension Worker Marian
Kegne returns to Sekota Health Centre. She works with her colleague to get the records right
before calling the day off. In early May, UNICEF supported a vaccination campaign in IDP sites and villages affected by conflict in the Waghimra zone of the Amhara region. Along with the campaign, children and pregnant women were also screened for their nutrition status. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene
Village Samho, Samho Block, Dist. Begusarai, Bihar, INDIA. Ritu Rani, Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM), immunize a child inside Anganwadi centre in Begusarai, Bihar. Social Mobilisation Network (SMNet), a UNICEF-supported initiative which mobilizes the community at every level village, block, district, region, state to get their children immunized from basic diseases as part of the governments routine immunization programmes. SMNet was started essentially in the 2000s as part of the government's anti-Polio campaigns. SMNet officers thus operate at every level, starting from the village level (where there's a Community Mobilisation Coordinator, typically belonging to the village), to the block, district, sub-region, and region, where there are corresponding mobilizing coordinators for every block, district, sub-region etc. SMNet is premised on the idea that people from within the community are the best ones to mobilize others in their people be it their village, their block or district. But this is where officers such as Bijay Ranjan prove that familiarity is merely an added advantage to the mobilizing process: the real trick lies in effective communication. It is this that made SMNet successful to the extent that SMNET Bihar officers have gone on mobilization drives to other states such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh etc. Although SMNet started as a tool to fight Polio campaign, over the years it has transcended its original definition, and become a pool of human resource that can be realigned to any other social/developmental goal. In fact, as of 2015, exactly a year after the WHO declared India as Polio Free, the SMNet is busy tackling diarrhea, malnutrition, hygiene and breast-feeding, all of which are critical to keeping Polio at bay. Immunization in India continues to be an ongoing challenge.
UNICEF India/2015/Dhiraj Singh.
Area: Chandmari Juggi, Vijaynagar District: Ghaziabad, State: Uttar Pradesh Country: India, 21ST March 2017 .
A Block Mobilization Co ordinator speaks to a mother to take her daughter due for an vaccine prior to routine immunization at the Chandmari Juggi. 27-year-old Naazma Begum along with her husband Mohhammed Avrakh reside in a 100 sq.feet plot of land covered by blue and yellow plastic supported by bamboo sticks. In order to survive Naazma picks rags from garbage dumps and construction sites, sometimes travelling around 8 to 10 kilometers a day. Typically her day starts at 4:00 am, and sometimes can extend till late evenings. After picking useful items out of garbage she comes back to her slum colony and sorts out the various pieces of junk collected. Plastic, metals, glass and other items are separated and sold. Children, young and old participate in this activity. The sorted items would then be sold to a “Kabadi Wala” ( Wholesale Junk Shop).
On certain days Naazma does not go for her morning rounds of rag picking. This does affects her household economically. Her husband a magician doing shows for a living does not have a steady stream of income. In spite of the circumstances Naazma on these mornings goes house to house motivating young mothers from her community to take their children for routine immunization sessions organized in her locality by the National Health Mission.
An inspiration to many, Naazma sometimes has tough time convincing her friends to take their children. Excuses ranging from, “We don’t have time’, “the child will get fever “ are common in her community. Naazma patiently explains the dangers caused due to lack of vaccination and its necessity in today’s life to every household. Her effort along with the support of Community Mobilization Coordinator and Block Mobilization Coordinator has led to a massive increase in the children immunized in Vijaynagar Ghaziabad.