Taking control as a family

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Emeline Cokelet Meneken

Luca Khaoya is a respected man in his rural Kenyan community. Neighbors come to him for advice about health issues. They ask him how to solve family problems. They see how happy he, his wife, and his children are, and they want to be the same way.

A man and woman, their two teenage daughters, and toddler son pose in front of a mud wall.

The Khaoya Sikholia family. Photo: PATH.

But Luca hasn’t always been so content. His marriage was filled with tension. His teenage daughters feared their father. He was bound by expectations that fathers always rule, even when it wasn’t in the best interest of his family’s health or his own. Continue reading »

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Meningitis vaccine reaches millions more in 2011

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Kathleen Donnelly

In sub-Saharan Africa’s “meningitis belt,” provisional results from the fall and winter vaccination campaign season are in. In the two years since MenAfriVac™ became available, nearly 55 million people have received the vaccine designed especially to protect them against group A meningococcal meningitis.

Arriving regularly in epidemic waves, meningitis A threatens the lives and well-being of millions living in countries stretching from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east. In December 2010, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger became the first three countries to introduce a new vaccine developed by the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP), a partnership between PATH and the World Health Organization. In late 2011, Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria joined in, reaching more than 21 million people—most aged 1 to 29 years old—with MenAfriVac™.

For more on MVP, watch our video, World Without Meningitis.

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Demystifying the condom

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Kathleen Donnelly

In February 2010, staff in our Kenya Country Program organized a “condolympics” for members of Kenya’s uniformed services as part of work in HIV/AIDS prevention.

The competition’s goals were to overcome obstacles to the use of condoms—and perhaps to have a little fun. Happy Valentine’s Day. And, in the United States, here’s to National Condom Week.

Click on image to enlarge.

Global health quiz

What’s a “dipstick” got to do with testing blood supplies for HIV? See the answer Friday.

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Milestones: the SoloShot™ syringe

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Jolayne Houtz

We’ve been featuring some of the most notable achievements in our history, including helping to develop a smart sticker that can show when a vaccine has been exposed to heat that might sap its effectiveness and increasing immunization against hepatitis B in Indonesia. Now, here’s the fourth in our series on milestones from PATH’s first 35 years.

1987 to 1992: Created the SoloShot™ syringe

The health challenge: Reuse and infection from contaminated needles is a major source of disease transmission in the developing world. An estimated 50 percent of injections in developing countries were estimated to be unsafe.

The SoloShot™ syringe. Photo: PATH/Glenn Austin.

What we did: PATH developed and implemented one of the first feasible approaches to nonreusable syringes for immunizations: an autodisable syringe with a fixed needle that automatically locks after a single injection. PATH collaborated with a private-sector partner, BD, to ensure the syringes were affordable and available in low-resource settings.

The result: Our work led to the development of other autodisable syringes, increasing competition and availability while lowering prices. Since commercial introduction in 1992, 6 billion vaccinations have been delivered using SoloShot™ syringes by public health programs in more
than 40 developing and emerging countries.

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Building support for mothers with HIV

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Emeline Cokelet Meneken

Anyone who’s had a baby knows how crucial a support network can be. Friends and loved ones can help a mother sort through parenting wisdom, make healthy decisions for her child, and resist well-meaning but misguided purveyors of advice.

Carolyne Wesa Amboye. Photo: PATH.

In a village in western Kenya, Carolyne Wesa Amboye was pregnant with her fourth child when she found a network of like-minded women that could provide the support she needed.

Carolyne joined a mother-to-mother support group to learn about nutrition for her baby, including breastfeeding exclusively for the child’s first six months. But she also found other mothers like her: living healthy, positive lives with HIV. Continue reading »

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Milestones: hepatitis B immunization in Indonesia

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Jolayne Houtz

We’ve been featuring some of the most notable achievements in our history, including modernizing contraceptive factories in China and helping to develop a smart sticker that can show when a vaccine has been exposed to heat that might sap its effectiveness. Now, here’s the third in our series on milestones from PATH’s first 35 years.

1987 to 1991: increased hepatitis B immunization coverage in Indonesia

Man gives newborn held by woman in red blouse a shot in the upper thigh.

A health worker gives a newborn a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine. Photo: PATH/Carib Nelson.

The health challenge: Hepatitis B, a potentially deadly liver infection that can spread from mother to infant at birth, was hyperendemic in Indonesia. With most births taking place at home, it was difficult to reach infants quickly enough with the vaccine that could prevent them from becoming infected.

What we did: PATH worked with the Indonesian Ministry of Health beginning in 1987 to launch a model immunization program on the island of Lombok. The innovative program introduced a comprehensive system for delivering a vital birth dose of the vaccine and established a system for tracking and monitoring pregnancies and births.

The result: The program achieved a nearly 100 percent rate of immunization. By 1991, the Indonesian government adopted a national policy requiring the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns. In 2000, PT. Bio Farma of Indonesia began manufacturing and marketing hepatitis B vaccine using the Uniject™ injection system developed at PATH. Using this prefilled, single-dose injection system, trained village midwives and other health workers give an estimated 5 million birth doses of the vaccine each year, immunizing every newborn within hours or days of birth to prevent perinatal transmission.

Global health quiz

On Tuesday, we asked if vaccination against hepatitis B virus may help protect against other liver diseases. The main objective of vaccination against the virus is to protect people from chronic hepatitis B infection. Chronic hepatitis B infection, though, can lead to other liver diseases, including cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Posted in Maternal and child health, Vaccines and immunization | Leave a comment

So good vaccines don’t go bad

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Lesley Reed

Vu Minh Huong. Photo: PATH/Nguyen Phu Cuong.

To have the best chance of saving a child from potentially deadly infection caused by hepatitis B, you must administer hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth. Not only must the vaccine be delivered promptly, it must be kept at a stable temperature to remain effective—a challenge when vaccines must travel long distances under varying conditions.

Project Optimize, a joint project of the World Health Organization and PATH, is collaborating with the government of Vietnam to test and apply technological advances to improve vaccine delivery systems. Dr. Vu Minh Huong, PATH’s senior team leader for vaccines and immunization in Vietnam, recently spoke about that work as part of our Power of Vaccines special feature. You can see his complete interview in the special feature. Continue reading »

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Milestones: world’s smartest sticker

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Jolayne Houtz

For the next few months, we’re highlighting notable achievements in our history. We started with our work in modernizing contraceptive factories in China. Now, here’s the second in our series on milestones from PATH’s first 35 years.

1970s: Developed vaccine vial monitors

Hands holding three vaccine vials with vaccine vial monitor stickers.

Vaccine vial monitors. Photo: PATH/Yancy Seamans.

The health challenge: Vaccines must be transported and stored at the proper temperature to maintain their potency. Health workers in developing countries had no way to know if a vaccine had been damaged by exposure to heat, forcing them to discard large quantities of lifesaving vaccines if they were not sure the vaccines could be used safely for immunization.

What we did: Starting in the late 1970s, PATH pioneered the use of a dime-sized sticker—the vaccine vial monitor—that adheres to a vaccine vial and changes color as the vaccine is exposed to heat.

The result: Vaccine vial monitors became commercially available in 1996 from our commercial partner, Temptime, and are now placed on all vaccines distributed by UNICEF, with more than 3.5 billion monitors used. Over the next decade, we estimate the monitors will allow health workers to identify and replace more than 230 million doses of damaged vaccines and to deliver 1.4 billion more doses in remote settings, saving more than 140,000 lives. UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate that use of the monitors, even just on basic vaccines, saves the global health community US$5 million a year.

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Ten things we’ll miss about Chris

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Kathleen Donnelly

Dr. Christopher J. Elias, PATH’s president and CEO until February 1, is admired for many of his traits and abilities. At a gathering last week to wish Chris well as he heads to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to become president of their Global Development Program, PATH staff members and leaders praised the qualities that make it so hard to see him go, even if it is just ten blocks up the hill from our Seattle headquarters.

Three men and two women smiling as one reads from a sheet of paper.

PATH President and CEO Chris Elias and Vice Presidents Jacqueline Sherris, Ayo Ajayi, Sarah Temple, and Eric Walker share a laugh. Photo: PATH/Patrick McKern.

His authenticity. His humility. His willingness to listen and to give advice. His facility with words and deep expertise in PATH’s broad portfolio of projects. His stamina, nimble mind, and quick wit.

His ability to fall asleep almost anywhere.

“It’s just unbelievable,” teased Dr. Ayo Ajayi, vice president for field programs and Chris’ frequent traveling companion to offices and projects worldwide. “I have such trouble falling asleep and I’d look over and he’d be gone. No wonder he has so much energy.” Continue reading »

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Where’s PATH in Africa?

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Kathleen Donnelly

On Wednesday in our global health quiz, we asked how many of PATH’s offices were located in Africa when Dr. Christopher J. Elias joined our organization in September 2000.

The answer is one office, located in Nairobi, Kenya.

This month, we’re saying goodbye to Chris, who is joining the staff of our Seattle neighbors, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As Chris mentioned in Wednesday’s exit interview, one of his proudest accomplishments while at PATH has been helping to build our field presence. Now, about half of PATH staff members work in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa, where we have offices in DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, as well as Kenya.

Chris recently joined our team in Kenya as we celebrated the program’s 20th anniversary. Check out our interview with program leader Rikka Trangsrud on the changes she’s seen in the health of Kenyans and PATH’s role in those changes. And come back early next week for our bon voyage to Chris.

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