Webinar: Reaching Zero-dose Children and Supporting Immunization Equity in Humanitarian Contexts

Description:

How do we restore and strengthen immunization to effectively reach populations in humanitarian settings? An estimated two-thirds of zero-dose children live in conflict-affected settings. More broadly, countries that are considered as fragile and conflict-affected states by the World Bank and IMF are home to nearly one billion people, nearly double the level 20 years ago. Research suggests that global conflicts are lasting longer and becoming more complex with greater impacts on civilian populations.

It is within this context that Gavi is currently revising its Fragility, Emergencies and Refugees Policy and will be inviting stakeholders to engage via a public consultation from 25 March to 1 April 2022. Alongside this, Gavi and IVAC partnered to organize a zero dose-focused webinar. A panel of humanitarian and immunization experts discussed the importance of prioritizing immunization equity in humanitarian settings and key issues for maintaining routine services including childhood immunization. The discussion also explored what Gavi and partners are doing to reach the most marginalized children.

Speakers:

• Amy LaTrielle, MBA, Director, Fragile and Conflict Countries at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance | Amy brings 25 years’ experience leading and strengthening global operations across the enterprise to drive quality programming at scale. Prior to joining Gavi, she was Vice President for Global Operations at Population Services International (PSI), based in Washington D.C. Over the past decade she has served in various field (Mali, Nigeria, Uganda, Nepal) and HQ leadership roles providing strategic leadership and operational and financial guidance and oversight to some of PSI’s largest regions in revenue generation and health impact. This includes time in-country building large regional and country programs and recently, as Vice President for a new PSI department, Fragile and Conflict countries, she started and built it into PSI’s largest revenue and health impact-generating operation. Amy holds a bachelor’s degree in History and French from The University of Montana and an MBA from The University of Phoenix.
• Ann Burton, MD, MPH, Chief of the Public Health Section, UNHCR | Dr. Burton is a medical doctor with a Master in Public Health. She has over twenty years’ of experience in international health programming with governments, NGOs and UNHCR. Most of this has been with conflict-affected and displaced populations in Asia, East Africa and the Middle East. She has been with UNHCR for seventeen years. She is now Chief of the Public Health Section at UNHCR Geneva.
• Gilbert Burnham, MD, PhD, MSc, Professor – Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health | Dr. Burnham is a faculty member in the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins which he founded in 1998. He has extensive experience in emergency preparedness and response, particularly in humanitarian needs assessment, program planning, and evaluation that address the needs of vulnerable populations, and the development and implementation of training programs.
• William Moss, MD, MPH, Executive Director, IVAC, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health | Dr. William Moss is Executive Director of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) and a professor in the Departments of Epidemiology, International Health, and Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is Principal Investigator of the Gavi-funded project “Zambia Evaluation & Research of 0-Dose (ZER0-D): Strategies to More Effectively Target Measles Zero-Dose Children” and member of the IA2030 Working Group on Immunization in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Areas.