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Community Conversations on Vaccines, Episode 6

Nigeria

October 12, 2021
Podcast
Podcast

Dr. Adefunke Adesina and Sabin's Elizabeth Kohlway discuss the opportunity to integrate immunization in Nigeria.

Presented by Immunization Advocates, Community Conversations on Vaccines explores issues related to vaccines and immunization in low- and middle-income countries through interviews with close-to-community professionals, including health workers, journalists and researchers.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Adefunke Adesina, a medical practitioner and epidemiologist and monitoring and evaluation focal person for the Lagos State Ministry of Health in Nigeria, and Liz Kohlway, Senior Manager of Community Building and Digital Engagement at Sabin. Vince Blaser and Francesca Montalto join Adefunke and Liz to discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating immunization with other health services as COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out in Nigeria, as well as how global communities of immunization professionals, such as Sabin’s Boost community, are creating opportunities for sharing best practices to address immunization challenges.

Full transcript (English)

About Our Guests

Adefunke Adesina
Dr. Adefunke Marufat Adesina is the State Monitoring and Evaluation focal officer, Directorate of Healthcare planning research and Statistic, Lagos State Ministry of Health, Lagos, Nigeria. She is also a resident doctor at Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Network. She is a physician with a special interest in maternal and child healthcare delivery with appropriate monitoring and evaluation. She has experience in primary health care services and epidemiology. Dr. Adesina has worked at all three tiers of health (primary, secondary and tertiary). She is involved with the revitalization of the primary health care system in Lagos State, integrated supportive supervision in most health programs including immunization, and serves as a sub-team lead of COVID-19 pandemic response in Nigeria. She is a trainer in family planning, immunization, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, essential newborn care, quality service assessment, and adolescent health. Dr. Adesina is an alumnus of multiple courses offered through Sabin’s Boost Community, the Geneva Learning Foundation and other platforms. She is passionate about immunization, an advocate of quality health service delivery and a community activator.
Adefunke Adesina
Elizabeth (Liz) Kohlway
Elizabeth (Liz) Kohlway is Senior Manager of Community Building and Digital Engagement at Sabin Vaccine Institute. She primarily manages the online platform, boostcommunity.org, for a global community of immunization professionals. Liz helped grow this new community of practice (circa January 2020) to more than 1,700 members from over 130 countries today. Currently, she leads member engagement for the online platform, including executing multiple trainings on adaptive leadership and community organizing. Prior to Sabin, Liz managed external affairs for a global health advocacy and membership organization. She is passionate about bringing local actors and voices working at the sub-national level to a global stage.
Elizabeth (Liz) Kohlway