At the November 2009 the GAVI Alliance Partners Forum in Hanoi, a group of 43 participants met to discuss their vision for future supply-chain systems for health. The resulting 2025 Vision is intended to be the common platform upon which all key partners at the country, regional, and global levels can unite to align short-term actions to achieve long-term goals.

Brent Burkholder, Director of the Global Immunization Division of the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and Ibrahim El-Ziq of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Supply Division reported the results of the GAVI Alliance Forum and explained the vision for the future of global immunization systems in the Project Opimize newsletter, which reached global audiences via TechNet21, the “Technical Network for Strengthening Immunization Services.”

Their report includes the following summary of the vision and objectives for the global immunization community:

Vision: By 2025, state-of-the-art supply systems meet the changing needs of a changing world.

Objective: To enable the right vaccines to be in the right place, at the right time, in the right quantities, in the right condition, at the right cost. Specific steps to achieve this objective are listed below:

Vaccine products and their packaging are designed with characteristics that best suit the operational needs of countries while ensuring that the highest standards of safety are maintained.

Vaccine distribution systems are streamlined for maximum efficiency and are built around mechanisms that support continuous learning to improve system performance.

Vaccine supply systems are integrated with the supply systems of other health programs to maximize synergies and make the best strategic links with the private sector.

The environmental impact of energy, materials, and processes used in vaccine distribution systems at the national and international levels is monitored and minimized.

The report highlights the efforts of major collaborators, including Project Opimize’s work to “encourage innovation and support policy changes that enable the right products and systems to be adopted and scaled up.”

The report goes on to describe SEEDR’s role in helping the global immunization community achieve these objectives.

Another collaborator, the Social, Environmental, and Economic Design Research (SEEDR) group, in a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded collaboration with the Global Immunization Division at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is prototyping passive cold chain equipment with next-generation manufacturing and materials technologies. SEEDR is reengineering a vaccine carrier, long-range cold box, and specimen transport container using recycled materials to increase cold life, decrease container weight, and improve affordability.”

SEEDR is excited and inspired by the potential its work holds for the global immunization community and looks forward to growing its contribution and commitment to the vision for a healthier, safer, more equitable planet through the proper application of technology, design, collaboration, and social enterprise.