IVI and Mongolia

IVI Member State

On October 28, 1996, Permanent Representative of Mongolia to the United Nations, Ambassador Jargalsaikhany Enkhsaikan, signed the IVI Establishment Agreement.

Supporting Independent Immunization and Vaccine Advisory Committees (SIVAC) Initiative

From 2009 to 2013, IVI provided technical assistance to the government of Mongolia with the establishment of its National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG). IVI and the Mongolian Ministry of Health began planning the Mongolian NITAG in 2009. The Mongolian government formally established the NITAG in 2010, and the NITAG held its inaugural opening 2011. IVI continued providing support and technical assistance to the Mongolian NITAG and its scientific secretariat through 2013, including a 2012 joint orientation workshop held in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO) in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Rotavirus Diarrhea Vaccine Program

From 2003 to 2009, IVI conducted hospital-based rotavirus surveillance studies that estimated rotavirus in hospitalized children under 5 in Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka. This program was funded by PATH’s Rotavirus Vaccine program and the U.S. CDC Foundation, and supported by the WHO collaborating Centre for Research in Human Rotavirus.

In Mongolia, this study was made in collaboration with the Mongolian Ministry of Health, the Health Sciences University of Mongolia, and the National Maternal and Child health Research Center at Sukhbaatar District Hospital in Ulaanbaatar.

The molecular analysis of rotavirus strains was conducted in collaboration with the University of Melbourne in Australia. Local scientists, one each from Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, and Sri Lanka visited the Melbourne reference laboratory for short-term training to learn molecular virologic typing methods using reverse-transcription PCR. Strain typing skills are critical to understanding changes in the types of infections that may cause epidemics in the future.

The results of this study uncovered an average rotavirus incidence rate of 35%, and provided the basis for estimating the national incidence of rotavirus diarrhea in Mongolia.

IVI Mongolian Staff

From 2002 to 2015, Dr. Nyambat Batmunkh served as an epidemiologist at IVI