IVI and Lao People’s Democratic Republic

 

Ongoing Collaboration

 

Capturing data on Antimicrobial resistance Patterns and Trends in Use in Regions of Asia (CAPTURA)

The IVI-led CAPTURA project played a pivotal role in expanding historical and current datasets on AMR and antimicrobial usage through extensive data collection efforts across Southeast and South Asia. Building on its successes, CAPTURA II aims to further improve the quality, quantity, analysis, and dissemination of AMR data. This phase focuses on refining methodologies in data collection, stronger monitoring of how surveillance systems are performing, better data management practices, and supporting sustainable improvements in these surveillance systems.

 

The project runs from 2023 through 2025, directly informing national and regional initiatives to help:

  1. Improve AMR surveillance
  2. Promote antimicrobial stewardship
  3. Shape evidence-based policy

 

Countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam

 

Strengthening External Quality Assurance for AMR in Asia (EQAsia)

The Technical University of Denmark is leading a consortium with IVI and the Veterinary Faculty at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand with the Strengthening External Quality Assurance for AMR in Asia (EQAsia) project. During the first phase, the consortium identified and mapped coverage of external quality assurance programs on the continent, providing seven rounds of services and relevant trainings to National Reference Laboratories and Centers of Excellence across One Health sectors. In the next phase, launched in 2023, partners provide four additional rounds of external quality assurance to more than 80 laboratories and centers in Asia and support two countries in establishing national external quality assurance programs to build up their capacity to independently conduct One Health-focused external quality assurance.

 

Regional Antimicrobial resistance Data Analysis for Advocacy, Response and policy (RADAAR)

This initiative improves regional data sharing and analysis for use in AMR planning, policy, and advocacy. The project laid the groundwork to strengthen the capacities of low- and middle-income countries to translate AMR knowledge – from data and evidence to effective policies. In 2024, RADAAR initiated the Evidence-Informed Policy Network with the World Health Organization in Bhutan, hosted a series of policy webinars, initiated online training modules, and conducted a systematic literature review on the economic evaluations of AMR.

 

Technical Assistance for Clinical Engagement – Asia (TACE Asia)

The TACE Asia project focuses on providing technical support to improve the use of laboratory services and generation of good quality and representative AMR and antimicrobial use data in the human health sector. This will be done through support for clinical engagement and training on the use of simplified protocols to generate AMR burden data in select Fleming Fund priority countries. Launched in 2024, the program is contributing to the use of data on clinical practice and decision-making, improving rational use of antimicrobials, promoting antimicrobial stewardship, and shaping evidence-based practice.

 

Countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Viet Nam

 

Technical Assistance for Data and Evidence Use (TADEU)

The TADEU project was launched to provide technical assistance to support data production and improve the use of AMR data and evidence, with a particular focus on the economic evaluations of AMR.

 

In 2024, the project:

  1. Developed a micro-costing tool to help governments plan future AMR surveillance by informing financial implications, sustainability, and outcomes of AMR surveillance.
  2. Developed protocols and tools to measure the impact of antimicrobial stewardship programs as well as the economic burden of AMR.
  3. Completed literature reviews on existing methodologies and frameworks for econometric modeling and quantifications for AMR economic burden and impact measurements of stewardship programs.
  4. Developed a technical guide for the Political Economy Analysis framework.

 

Countries: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Viet Nam 

 

Strengthening Pandemic Preparedness and Stakeholder Coordination in Asia

With a 130,000 USD grant from the IVI Europe Regional Office, IVI is conducting a landscape analysis of public health and epidemic preparedness frameworks across 19 countries in South and Southeast Asia, including Laos, focusing on key stakeholders, coordination mechanisms, and the clinical research and biomanufacturing ecosystem. 

 

The insights will guide IVI’s strategic engagement and support the development of CEPI’s Asia Pandemic Preparedness proposal by identifying regional capacities, gaps, and priority needs.

 

Countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Viet Nam.  

 

Previous Collaboration

 

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Surveillance & Capacity Building

With support for UKAID’s Fleming Fund, IVI’s CAPTURA program is working with health authorities in 12 countries across central and southeast Asia (including Laos) to collect, review, and digitize AMR surveillance data. The project also helps identify gaps in data and areas for quality improvement that can be addressed in future initiatives to strengthen surveillance capacity. The information resource generated by the project will improve awareness, advocacy, policy, and interventions needed to combat AMR and antimicrobial misuse. 

 

Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative (PDVI)

Laos began working with the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in 2003, when the nation participated in a disease burden study as part of the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative (PDVI). 

 

Rotavirus Vaccine Program (RVP)

In 2003, Gavi, the Health Alliance approved the creation of the Accelerated Development and Introduction Plan (ADIP) for rotavirus vaccines to reduce the global burden of the rotavirus. This ADIP became the Rotavirus Vaccine Program (RVP). With funding from PATH and the RVP, IVI scientists worked to develop a protocol to conduct standardized hospital-based studies in Vientiane, Laos; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

 

In 2005, pediatricians and public health agencies began enrolling children in these studies. In addition to enrolling suspected rotavirus cases into Laos’s hospital-based surveillance study, IVI scientists also supplied collaborators with the capacity to perform G and P typing for rotavirus strains and invited one local scientist to go through short term molecular virologic typing training at the University of Melbourne. In Laos, IVI collaborated with Mahosot Hospital, the National Institute of Public Health, and the Ministry of Health.

 

VAEIMS Program

IVI developed a software tool, the Vaccine Adverse Events Information Management System (VAEIMS) in collaboration with the WHO to facilitate the transfer of AEFI data from the periphery of a healthcare system into a central database for processing and analysis, as well as a global database. This will ultimately guide decision making at different levels of a country. The customized and upgraded version of VAEIMS has been deployed at a national level in four priority countries in the WHO Western Pacific Region – Cambodia, Lao PDR, Mongolia and Viet Nam.