Galleries

Usually parents are quick to ask children to scrub their inky fingers – but not after a recent life-saving vaccination campaign in Malawi. Close to 8 million children’s fingers were marked with an ink stain to show that they had been immunised against two deadly diseases – measles and rubella.

The Vaccine Alliance is supporting one of the largest cholera vaccination campaigns ever conducted in Africa. Targeting over 450,000 people, the oral cholera vaccine campaign aims to counter a potential nationwide epidemic fuelled by severe drought and lack of access to clean water and sanitation.

If you know something about global health, you’ve probably heard of Edward Jenner or Jonas Salk, but what about the women who also helped lay the foundations for modern immunisation? Meet five remarkable women who pushed forward the frontiers of science.

With July’s launch of pneumococcal vaccine, which protects against the main cause of deadly pneumonia, Myanmar has introduced 9 vaccines against 10 diseases into its national immunisation programme.

What better way for Liberia to celebrate African Vaccination Week 2016 than with a dual celebration: the introduction of rotavirus vaccine into the national immunisation system and the launch of a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine demonstration project.

While West Africa is still struggling with new cases of Ebola, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone must also rebuild their health systems to reach children with life-saving vaccines and prevent outbreaks of other dangerous diseases.

As one of the first countries in south east Asia to introduce the pneumococcal vaccine, Nepal’s immunisation system is under the microscope with many countries hoping to learn from their neighbour’s experience.

To encourage support for Red Nose Day USA, Gavi and four other international Red Nose Day USA charity partners – charity:water; the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; Oxfam; and Save the Children hosted a reception at the US Capitol on Tuesday attended by members of Congress, who emphasised the important work of the US government in championing global health and development.

These images show the efforts behind DR Congo’s introduction of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) into their routine immunisation schedule – one of over 70 Gavi-eligible countries expected to introduce IPV by the end of 2015 in an unprecedented global effort to meet the goals of the Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan.