This resource round-up is available in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian.
With three years of pandemic-related disruptions to vital health services and strained health systems, the world lost 30 years of progress to protect children with routine immunisations, an essential component to primary health services. This year’s World Immunisation Week theme, centered around “The Big Catch-up,” aims to support countries to catch-up the millions of children who missed out on vaccines during the pandemic, restore essential immunisation coverage to at least 2019 levels, and strengthen primary health care to deliver immunisation. Below are seven key resources that country stakeholders can use to address these critical challenges as they aim to strengthen service delivery to maintain, increase, or restore immunisation coverage levels and reach zero-dose children.
1. Clearing Immunisation Backlogs and Building Back Better in the Wake of Covid-19
In December, Linked held a workshop in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which brought together immunisation stakeholders from Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam to discuss good practices and promising approaches in Clearing Immunisation Backlogs and Building Back Better in the Wake of Covid-19. The workshop revealed a wealth of information on the challenges countries have faced due to the pandemic, in addition to what they are doing to catch-up children and address the resulting backlog. For those stakeholders who did not attend the workshop, don’t miss out on the rich learnings and make sure to check out the materials, including presentations and country posters, as well as a key takeaways brief on country experiences and strategies that emerged during the workshop.
- Linked Workshop Resources: Clearing Immunisation Backlogs & Building Back Better in the Wake of COVID-19
- Brief: 10 Key Takeaways from the Linked Asia Pacific Workshop
2. Addressing Insufficient Operational Funding to Reach Zero-Dose Children and Missed Communities
This brief, produced by the MOMENTUM Routine Immunization Transformation and Equity project (MRITE), focuses on a key entrenched obstacle to reaching zero-dose children and missed communities with routine immunisation services — insufficient operational funds available at subnational and facility levels to implement tailored delivery and advocacy strategies to reach specific hard-to-reach and vulnerable populations.
3. Reaching Zero-dose Children Webinar Series
The Zero-Dose Children Webinar series aimed to build an understanding of how to reach key populations missed by immunisation and other basic health services, including communities residing in poor urban areas (informal settlements), those affected by conflict and displacement, and residents of remote-rural areas. All the webinar recordings are accessible in English or French.
4. Recovering from the Unprecedented Backsliding in Immunization Coverage: Learnings from Country Programming in Five Countries through the Past Two Years of COVID-19 Pandemic Disruptions
This article, authored by the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), Global Vaccines Delivery Team and Country Offices, spotlights examples of strategies used by five countries—Cambodia, Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda—who have exhibited exemplar performance in strengthening routine immunisation programmes and restored lost coverage levels in the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
5. Supply Chain Guidance and Strategies to Reach Under-served Zero-dose Communities
This webinar provided an overview of evidence-based guidance and effective supply chain strategies that contribute to reaching under-served populations and zero-dose communities. In this session, participants learned the principles of designing and implementing reliable and resilient supply chains that enable equitable immunisation services. The webinar recording is available in English, French, and Spanish and the presentation is available in English.
6. How Data Systems Can Help Reach Zero-dose and Under-immunised Children
This brief is for government decision-makers, funders, and partners who are involved in advancing health information systems and data tools for identifying, reaching, and monitoring zero-dose and under-immunised children. It highlights findings and recommendations from the Landscape Analysis of Health Information Systems and Data Tools for Identifying, Reaching, and Monitoring Zero-Dose and Under-immunised Children.
7. Zero-Dose Knowledge Summaries and Briefs to Inform Advocacy and Policy Work
IVAC produced a series of five evidence-based knowledge summaries and advocacy briefs to inform policy and advocacy work to increase equitable immunisation access for all. The Knowledge Summaries present a snapshot of the available scientific evidence on a specific topic or area of interest related to zero-dose children, highlighting key findings from the latest peer-reviewed literature. The accompanying Advocacy Briefs present additional information and contextual details to give a more thorough overview and provide additional resources.