Understanding the Factors Affecting Meningitis A Prevention
Large-scale immunization programs such as the Meningitis Vaccine Project have mainly been successful in nearly eliminating meningitis A across countries within sub-Saharan Africa. The Global Health & Innovation Lab is exploring the factors that led to the success of the Meningitis Vaccine Project in sub-Saharan Africa and how other programs can mirror its success in the implementation and scale-up of mass immunization programs that target other infectious diseases that burden the region.
Overview
Large-scale immunization programs such as the Meningitis Vaccine Project have mainly been successful in nearly eliminating meningitis A across countries within sub-Saharan Africa. The Global Health & Innovation Lab is exploring the factors that led to the success of the Meningitis Vaccine Project in sub-Saharan Africa and how other programs can mirror its success in the implementation and scale-up of mass immunization programs that target other infectious diseases that burden the region.
Importance
The Meningitis Belt is a region extending across sub-Saharan Africa that experiences high rates of meningococcal meningitis disease. From 2001 to 2017, The Meningitis Vaccine Project was a large-scale immunization initiative created in partnership between PATH and WHO to reduce the burden of meningitis A across the region. The initiative led to widespread success in dramatically reducing rates of meningitis A and successfully eliminating epidemics from the region.
Research Objectives
The Global Health & Innovation Lab are investigating factors that led to the success of The Meningitis Vaccine Project and the implementation challenges, while also identifying effective implementation strategies for implementing large-scale immunization programs in low-resource settings and adapting the implementation strategies of The Meningitis Vaccine Project to inform other national immunization programs in sub-Saharan Africa.
Implications
Based on the results, the research team is developing recommendations of implementation strategies to support policymakers and practitioners in implementing national immunization programs. Implementing the Meningitis Vaccine Project can provide lessons for similar low-resource settings in developing and implementing large-scale immunization programs that target other infectious diseases as well.
Related Publications/Protocols
- Implementation of the Meningitis Vaccine Project in Africa: lessons for vaccine implementation programs (https://www.joghr.org/article/29042-implementation-of-the-meningitis-vaccine-project-in-africa-lessons-for-vaccine-implementation-programs)