Bruce Gellin: Keeping a Focus on Routine Immunizations While Responding to Covid-19

Pandemic Planet

Looking ahead to World Immunization Week, 2021, Bruce Gellin, President of Global Immunizations at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, joins us to discuss the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on routine immunization programs and reflect on the challenges and opportunities presented by the rollout of new vaccines to prevent infection with Covid-19. How have lockdowns, social distancing, and the diversion of health workers to outbreak response affected families’ access to immunization services? Are the lower-and middle-income countries prepared to undertake the kind of immunization campaigns that getting Covid-19 vaccines equitably distributed will require? How can the United States strengthen its support for global immunization programs as the world emerges out of the Covid crisis?