Path

Essential medicines:path's essential medicines division develops and delivers lifesaving vaccines and drugs for communities around the globe--especially women and children.(continued on schedule o)center for vaccine innovation and accesspath's center for vaccine innovation and access aligns expertise across every stage of vaccine research, development, and introduction to make vaccines available to more communities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (lmics). our portfolio includes more than two dozen vaccine products in development or already in use, with an emphasis on the leading infectious causes of child death and disease worldwide.in 2023, path continued to support covid-19 prevention and emergency response preparedness by coordinating grants to research groups conducting trials of covid-19 vaccines at fractional doses in low-resource settings. we supported the mrna vaccine technology hub in south africa and provided coordination and technical assistance for a consortium developing an egg-based covid-19 vaccine for production in brazil, thailand, vietnam, and other lmics. path, in collaboration with the world health organization (who), continued to curate the covid-19 maternal immunization resource librarya one-stop online hub for public health information about covid-19 vaccines and pregnancy.in ongoing efforts to facilitate local vaccine production, path supported lmic vaccine manufacturers to ready locally made vaccines for the global market, thereby increasing available interventions and potentially making vaccines more accessible for lmics. we provided technical assistance to several manufacturers preparing for who prequalification submission or inspection, supported manufacturers in clinical trial design and regulatory filings, mapped the current vaccine manufacturing capacity in africa, and supported clinical assay development and technology transfers, among other activities.path continued to provide technical support to polio vaccine manufacturers and advance research on new inactivated polio vaccine and oral polio vaccine candidates. in 2023, novel type-2 oral polio vaccine received who prequalification, and a novel type-1 oral polio vaccine candidate advanced to phase 2 study.throughout the year, path and our partners expanded coverage of japanese encephalitis (je) vaccination and finalized and disseminated evidence to support je vaccine decision-making. path concluded studies on the cost of illness for je and its long-term consequences in bangladesh, laos, and vietnam. path held a bi-regional meeting in vientiane, laos, in october 2023 to bring stakeholders together to discuss lessons learned, identify opportunities for further je vaccine introduction and scale-up, and continue the momentum for je control. path's je projects concluded in december 2023.also in 2023, menfive, the polyvalent meningococcal meningitis conjugate vaccine (mmcv) that path supported in development, clinical studies, and regulatory submission, received who prequalification. prequalification confirms the vaccine meets strict international quality standards and can be made available on the global market. developed by serum institute of india pvt. ltd., menfive builds on the success of menafrivac, a groundbreaking vaccine against serogroup-a meningococcal meningitis that was developed through an earlier path partnership. the polyvalent vaccine targets serogroups a, c, w, x, and y. as the first vaccine to target serogroup x, the vaccine has the potential to eliminate meningococcal meningitis epidemics from africa's "meningitis belt" region. we also continued to contribute technical and strategic expertise to the global defeating meningitis by 2030 initiative. and, we served as a coordinator between who, gavi (the vaccine alliance), and global partners to identify pathways to accelerate mmcv introduction once the vaccine is made available, which led to a recommendation by who's strategic advisory group of experts on immunizatio