As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to commemorate the World Immunisation Week, which spans from 24-30 April, with the theme: “Vaccines Work”, Pfizer has expressed her dedication to increasing access to immunisations in countries that carry the greatest proportion of the global burden of pneumococcal disease, which can help prevent diseases and save lives.
In support of this commitment, and to help address the practical constraints experienced by health workers operating in many Gavi countries, Pfizer developed Prevenar 13® in the Multi-Dose Vial-MDV presentation (4 doses per vial). This new presentation will help to significantly reduce storage requirements and shipping costs in communities with health systems that are still developing. In April 2016, the MDV presentation received a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Subsequently, the MDV was pre-qualified by the WHO in July 2016.
In January 2017, Pfizer launched the new multi-dose vial- MDV which was prequalified in accordance with WHO’s ‘open container policy.’ With its ‘open container’ attributes, it allows for the fourth dose to be used for up to 28 days after the first dose in drawn and providing the recommended cold storage requirements have been met.
To ensure the efficient use of the multi-dose vial, Pfizer is supporting Gavi countries with a refresher training of trainers program on a variety of immunisation topics including the proper handling of multi-dose vials with open container policy. Pfizer partnered AMP Services, an organisation dedicated to providing the tools to promote preventive medicine and public health worldwide, to execute the training of trainers sessions in 16 countries in 2017.
During the first four months of launch, fifteen countries have received the new MDV and nine of these have completed the training of trainers programs. These training sessions were well received by the national and regional trainers.
“We developed training materials that are easy to use for health workers and allow for interactive learning process at all levels”, said Georgiana Golodnius, Training Project Manager of AMP Services. In the countries where we have implemented training of the trainers, 97.3% of the participants think the developed training tools are useful and relevant.”
“Indeed we learnt a lot from the training and I feel the knowledge gained will be used to train other health workers in the country” Mr Mwagomba, Malawi.
Pfizer is committed to constant innovation and development to ensure that the challenges facing many throughout the world- geographical, economical and operational- can and will be met
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