Post00352 : GAVI NEW TECHNOLOGIES RESULTS

Post00352 GAVI NEW TECHNOLOGIES RESULTS 19 June 2001 CONTENTS 1. GAVI NEW TECHNOLOGIES QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS *In Technet Forum Post00330, GAVI - WHICH NEW TECHNOLOGIES?, 26 March 2001, Peter Wilson, PRB Consulting, on behalf of the GAVI Board, posted a questionnaire seeking the views of Technet members: "At the last GAVI Board Meeting it was proposed that the Task Force on R&D should seek out and evaluate new technologies and research that would improve the safety, access, effectiveness, utility, utilization or performance of immunization in developing countries. It was proposed that GAVI should consider supporting up to 3 such new technologies or research." Peter kindly has posted the summary of the analysis of responses from 41 respondents. * Interesting but: What does it mean? Opinion, comments and additions please: [log in to unmask] or use your reply button ___________________________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 From: Peter Wilson Subject: GAVI New Technologies Questionnaire Results To: Technet Moderator A couple of months ago I sent you a questionnaire to canvass your views on new technologies or research which could ultimately improve immunisation services in developing countries. Attached is a graphical interpretation of the results of that questionnaire, and also a written summary of the main findings. It must be recognised that the sample was small (41 respondents), and not fully representative, but the results are nevertheless interesting and informative. Peter Wilson ___________________________________________________________________________ The summary of the results of the questionnaire and Peter's PowerPoint presentation are available for download The files are available as a zip file: GAVI-NewTechnologiesQuestionsResults.zip containing these files: Questionnaire Results Summary.pdf Questionnaire Responses 1.ppt To download send an email to: [log in to unmask] with the message: get technet GAVI-NewTechnologiesQuestionsResults.zip And the file will automatically be emailed to you if you are a Technet Forum Subscriber. Or point your web browser to: ftp://ftp.acithn.uq.edu.au/Technet/1-ClickHereForTECHNETfiles/GAVI and double click on the file: GAVI-NewTechnologiesQuestionsResults.zip to start the download ___________________________________________________________________________ QUESTIONNAIRE RESULTS SUMMARY Results of the Questionnaire The questionnaire results show some clear trends: 1) The desire to make immunisation simpler and easier: * Reducing the number of patient interactions * Improved Management and Tracking Systems * Solving the Short Term Engineering problems (e.g. Cold Chain) 2) Reducing the dependency on the Cold Chain, which appears to be a major source of difficulty 3) Reducing the use of sharps in the long term and moving to non- parenteral immunisation 4) Seeking ways to make immunisation safer 5) A need to better understand the effectiveness of the immunisation service and factors affecting the immunisation access and coverage, so that these can be improved The attached Powerpoint file "New Technology Questionnaire - Summary of Responses" provides a more detailed description of the responses. The 41 responses were analysed in three categories: o Developing Countries (12 respondents) o Specialists (4 responses from PATH and CDC) o Others from Developed Countries 1) In terms of the role (or goal) of new technology or research, there were some interesting outcomes: * The most important role of new technologies was seen to be to make immunisation Simpler, Easier, and more Practical a) This was seen as the most important goal by the developing countries * Second most important role is to increase Access, Coverage and Utilisation (combining the two access responses as they were seen to be similar by respondents) a) This was seen by developing countries as the second most important goal * Third most important role is to make immunisation Safer a) This was the goal rated highest by the Specialists, and second lowest by the developing countries 2) The most important criteria to be used to select the new technologies was, by far * The Potential Impact upon safety, access, performance, etc. of immunisation a) Increasing Immunisation coverage was seen to be the most important measurement of the Impact b) However, if one combined all the scores for measurement of mortality and morbidity, these would then be seen to be the most important measurement of impact * Next most important criteria in close descending order were: a) Probability of Technical Success in a short/medium timeframe b) Programme Feasibility c) Sustainability of the application of the new technology in developing countries. 3) In Assessing which technology or research areas were likely to have the greatest impact, and hence should be supported, there were some interesting variations in responses from the different groups: * The Developing Countries gave greatest support, in descending order to: a) Technologies which will reduce the number of patient interactions (contacts) b) Reducing dependency on the cold chain and temperature stability c) Field and Operations Research * The Specialists gave greatest support to: a) Elimination of non-sterile injections b) Unit dose delivery * Overall, greatest support in descending order was for: a) Elimination of non-sterile injections, unit dose delivery and prevention of contamination (when all combined) b) Reducing dependency on the Cold Chain and Temperature Stability c) Technologies which reduce the number of patient interactions 4) When it came to ranking more specific technologies, there were distinct differences in the Short term and the Longer Term. For Short Term action, the Technologies or Research which were rated highest by all respondents were - in descending order: * Improved Management and Tracking Systems in the field * Temperature Stability technologies * Operations and Field Research * Multi-valent and Multi-vaccine administration * In addition a) Developing countries rated "Engineering Solutions" highly, i.e. appropriate technologies to solve engineering problems such as cold chain b) The Specialists rated Uniject and pre-fill technologies and Monodose highly, together with Waste Handling 5) The Longer Term technology solutions showed a clear lead for the highest ranked technology area * Non-Parenteral delivery was rated almost twice as high as any other generic technology area (transcutaneous, oral, mucosal, etc) * Reducing dependency on the Cold Chain and temperature stability was clearly second * Third was multi-valent and multi-vaccine delivery * Fourth was needle free parenteral delivery ____________________________________*______________________________________ ____________________________________*__________________________________