The Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation

Rvf works in partnership with local governments to introduce modern vaccines for children into the national routine vaccination schedules in middle income countries (mics) and publishes the epidemiological results of the programs in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The vaccination programs are implemented entirely by local health care workers, thereby building local capacity and ownership from the beginning, and are fully sustained by the host governments within 3 years of inception. Following the launch of the rvf-initiated rotavirus vaccination program for all infants in gaza and the west bank in 2016- approximately 135,000 babies annually rvf, with financing from the bill & melinda gates foundation, has been conducting surveillance documenting the impact of the rotavirus vaccine on the disease burden. The results of the first phase of the surveillance were published in the peer-reviewed journal vaccine. Unfortunately, due to the war, the supply of rotavirus vaccine was interrupted from june through december 2024, so there is a possibility that rotavirus disease will reemeerge before the vaccine supply can be replenished and vaccination resume in 2025. In egypt rvf contiunes its initiative to introduce the rotavirus vaccine into the national immunization schedule for children and to transfer the technology to manufacture the vaccine in the country. The rvf-sponsored baseline study of rotavirus disease prevalence in egypt, financed by the gates foundation and published in the egyptian pharmaceutical journal, has lent momentum to the registration process of the vaccine in egypt and the planning of the tech transfer from the indian manufacturer to an egyptian vaccine manufacturer.