Dear IAPHL Members,
Happy July 1st! I hope that you all are continuing to weather the storm that is COVID-19. I recognize that most of our membership are engaged in numerous efforts to address this pandemic.
As part of our news update, I wanted to let everyone know that we have seen some real growth in the number of people taking advantage of our social media outreach on Facebook, Twitter and especially LinkedIn. People are also going to the IAPHL website and clicking on our COVID-19 red button, to access all the resources about supply chain and COVID-19 that have been shared so far. I again ask everyone who has not updated their profile by answering a few more questions to do so on the website.
Like many of you, I have been taking advantage of the many webinars that are being offered on line. I hope, for those who were interested, that you were able to join the IAPHL Webinar: WHO’s COVID-19 Essential Supplies Forecasting Tool (EFST) (Part I). If you missed it, you can find it on our website. We hope to have the follow-on webinar sometime this month.
In June, we again held a meeting with many of the IAPHL chapter leaders. We plan to continue these meetings on a monthly basis. We also held our long overdue Advisory Group Meeting. It was well attended and we were especially happy that our chapter leaders from Nigeria and Ethiopia were able to get through and attend. One of the key topics discussed was the need to reach out again to our membership with a survey to get your thoughts on how IAPHL is serving your needs. So look for a survey, whose success will depend on your participation, being posted on the listserv in the coming months.
As you may have read on the listserv and through social media, a small group has come together to begin the process of establishing a US IAPHL Chapter. I attended the first meeting and came away with the idea that there could be much to share between the domestic US experience and that of the majority of our membership working in the Global South.
For our immunization supply chain folks, I wanted to let you know that IAPHL is a member of a new group called the Partnership of Immunization Networks (PIN). The groups includes Boost, Immunization Academy. TechNet-21 and The Geneva Learning Foundation. We are all looking for the best ways to collaborate and share information for the betterment of our respective communities.
Finally, I want to thank the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM) for renewing their sponsorship! And we welcome Pamela Steele Associates Limited (PSA) as a new sponsor!
Please stay safe and engaged!
Walter Proper
IAPHL Executive Director