Technical Advisor, New Vaccine Introductions, Global Vaccine Delivery

Overview

Overview

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems.

 

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.

 

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skill sets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with the majority of our staff based in program countries. Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org 

 

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

 

Overview of CHAI's Vaccines program

Immunization is one of the most successful public health interventions in history. National immunization programs reach >100 million infants every year and have averted globally two to three million deaths every year since the launch of the Expanded Program for Immunization (EPI). However, despite these successes, >1.5 million children still die each year of vaccine-preventable diseases. Many of these deaths occur in low-income countries, where immunization programs face unprecedented challenges (e.g., access to vaccines and ensuring vaccines reach all targeted people). On the bright side, advances in the development and financing of new vaccines provide great opportunities to tackle diseases and mortality through vaccine prevention.

 

Since 2010, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) has worked to save lives and reduce the burden from vaccine preventable diseases by improving access to immunization services in resource-limited setting by strengthening national immunization programs and by leveraging its experience in-country to improve the global immunization ecosystem. CHAI is pursuing six complementary strategic goals:

• Improving affordability and supply security of immunization products;
• Accelerating the uptake of new or under-utilized vaccines;
• Enhancing the performance of vaccine cold chain and logistics systems to increase effective immunization coverage;
• Improving the design and implementation of service delivery to reach the unreached;
• Strengthening the management system and capacity of immunization programs

CHAI's vaccine program supports the national immunization programs in 21 focus countries – Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Eswatini, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao PDR, Lesotho, Myanmar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam- and also engages with global stakeholders such as Gavi, WHO and UNICEF to inform global policies and practices.

 

Immunization Service Delivery

Despite significant gains made in immunization coverage from 21% in 1980, global DTP3 coverage has stalled at approximately 85% since 2010, while in 2018 DTP3 coverage in West and Central Africa stagnated at 70%, and in East and Central Africa was at 81%. As a result, nearly one quarter of children under-5 in the region are under- or unimmunized. Immunization coverage is generally much lower for vaccines that are delivered via weaker or complex delivery platforms