Breakfast with an Expert

At the 2018 GIM experts volunteered to host a breakfast round table discussion. Participants joined these experts for breakfast on Wednesday, 27 June and Thursday, 28 June in the Radisson Blu Hotel Restaurant, Larder, from 7:15 to 8:15. 

Wednesday, 27 June
Restaurant Larder in the Radisson Blu Hotel
7:15 to 8:18

Expert 1
Patrick Zuber, WHO
On vaccine safety

Expert 2
Joint WHO and UNICEF team on TT to Td replacement
The SAGE recommendation on the replacement of the TT vaccine with the Td vaccine came about in 1998. Countries have been very slow in making the replacement. Recent outbreaks of diphtheria and the very likely association of this with waning immunity to diphtheria, following the primary series necessitates the need to take a different and more decisive approach to ensuring that countries implement the recommendation. Tracey Goodman (WHO), Heather Deehan (UNICEF) and Ahmadu Yakubu (UNICEF) will be discussing what needs to be done to facilitate the process.

Expert 3
Chizoba Wonodi
Join Dr. Chizoba Wonodi for breakfast to ask your questions about working with governments, from the CSO perspective, as well as specifics about working in Nigeria.
Dr. Chizoba Wonodi is public health physician with over twenty-seven years’ experience on projects in Africa, Asia and America. She is the Nigeria Country Director at the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) based in Baltimore. She is also the Founder and Convener of Women Advocates for Vaccine Access, a coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria advocating for increased uptake of vaccines and sustainable financing of immunization programs. Dr. Wonodi splits her time between Abuja and Baltimore conducting research and leading a portfolio of work to improve immunization service delivery and primary health care systems in Nigeria, through operations research, technical assistance and policy advocacy.

Dr. Wonodi obtained her medical degree from the University of Benin, Nigeria; her masters and doctorate in public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She has received many awards, including, the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute scholarship for masters and doctorate studies, the Carolyn Cochrane Fellowship award and the Population Reference Bureau Fellowship. She currently serves on the steering committee of the Gavi CSO Constituency Platform at the global level and the interim steering committee of the Gavi CSO Platform in Nigeria.

Thursday, 28 June
Restaurant Larder in the Radisson Blu Hotel
7:15 to 8:18

Experts 4&5
Dr. Ghulman Dastagir Nazary, National EPI Manager, Ministry of Public Health, Afgahnistan

in discussion with

Dr. Karen Broome-Toppin, National EPI Manager, Ministry of Public Health, Barbados

Expert 5
Ebru Ekeman
Join Ebru Ekeman, Technical Officer at the WHO on the EPI team, for breakfast and to ask your questions about the intersection of the polio and EPI programmes at the global, regional and country levels, along with her perspectives on future directions, especially on how to integrate polio functions into immunization as we draw closer to the eradication goal.

Ebru joined the EPI Team in December 2017 to support the work on polio transition. Ebru has supported the drafting of the WHO’s Corporate Strategic Action Plan on Polio Transition, presented to the World Health Assembly in May 2018. Prior to joining EPI, Ebru was working in the WHO’s Polio Department on political advocacy with polio endemic, outbreak and high-risk countries, as well as on polio transition, as the WHO focal point on the Transition Management Group of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to mitigate the risks of the polio funding ramp down at the country level. Before joining the WHO, Ebru worked as a career diplomat for fifteen years, focusing on the multilateral humanitarian and development agenda, serving in various foreign missions, including Brussels, Sarajevo, Geneva and Rome.

Expert 6
Dr. Pradeep Halder
Deputy Commissioner (Immunization)
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Government of India
Join Dr. Pradeep Halder, Deputy Commissioner (Immunization) in India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for breakfast and to ask your questions about India’s experience with increasing immunization coverage and equity, introducing new vaccines, and new innovations the country is using to better use their immunization data.
Dr. Pradeep Haldar has been working as the National Manager for Immunization Programme in India since 2010 with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. He also has experience working at the regional level with WHO-IVD in SEARO. Under his oversight, India has introduced several new vaccines, such as Pentavalent, IPV, PCV, MR and Rotavirus in a very short-time frame. India was successful in rooting out wild polio virus under his strategic direction, this success was critical for polio-free certification of SEAR region. To strengthen the immunization programme in the country, under his technical-managerial leadership, Mission Indradhanush was launched which has played an instrumental role in rapidly increasing immunization coverage of the country in recent years. He has also been the cornerstone in strengthening VPD surveillance including MR surveillance in India. He has several publications in reputable journals and has also participated in various academic events. Being a strong advocate, he is taking every possible step to take transition planning forward and utilize the polio assets for future public health strengthening overall.