Resources

This case study highlights PATH and our partners’ successful advocacy efforts to ensure the protection of vaccines containing thiomersal—a preservative used in multi-dose vaccines. In January 2013, government delegates finalized a global environmental treaty on mercury having agreed to exclude vaccines containing the preservative thiomersal from further regulation.

This document highlights the outcomes of an event at the 2013 Women Deliver Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that drew together 260 global health professionals to discuss and make plans to address key issues to improve reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health in their own countries and states.

The UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children (the Commission) was formed in 2012 by the UN Secretary-General as a part of the Every Woman Every Child movement. The Commission’s framework for action outlines a priority list of 13 commodities and 10 cross-cutting recommendations to rapidly increase access and use. To help carry forward the Commission’s recommendations at the global and national levels, Global Technical Reference Teams (TRT) were established. One group was formed for each of the 13 commodities and 10 recommendations, and an advocacy working group is dedicated to advancing their cross-cutting goals. The advocacy working group, convened by PATH, developed a series of briefs highlighting the major goals, challenges, and activities of each TRT.

Magnesium sulfate is the most effective, low-cost treatment for preeclampsia/eclampsia, the second leading cause of maternal death in developing countries; yet it is widely underutilized. In this poster, created for the 2013 Saving Lives at Birth DevelopmentXChange, PATH proposed to develop a rectally delivered mucoadhesive gel containing magnesium sulfate. This will increase overall access to and the use of a critical anticonvulsant therapy for women with severe, life-threatening preeclampsia/eclampsia.

In 2012, project Optimize completed an assessment to explore the acceptability and feasibility of the innovative vaccine supply chain interventions the project had demonstrated in four collaborating countries. The goal was to learn about future implementations and to understand the current challenges and opportunities. This report describes the lessons learned.