Dropping of cold chain requirement for meningitis vaccine will improve access, IRIN reports

IRIN examines how the WHO's recent declaration that the MenAfriVac meningitis A vaccine can be transported or stored for up to four days without refrigeration will affect immunization campaigns in Africa's meningitis belt, which runs from Senegal to Ethiopia. "As a result, very remote populations will access the vaccine more easily, the logistics of vaccine campaigns will be simpler, and vaccine campaign costs will drop both for partners and for national governments, said Michel Zaffran, coordinator of WHO's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), and Marie-Pierre Preziosi, director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project, a partnership between international NGO PATH and WHO," IRIN writes. Zaffran said, "I am quite confident that within the next year or two, we'll have one or two more [vaccines] re-licensed in this way," according to the news service. "Analysis on the heat stability of hepatitis B and HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccines is under way; next on the list are yellow fever, rotavirus and pneumococcal disease," IRIN notes (11/20).