Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Foundation

Rvf launched a major initiative to provide safe water for drinking and personal hygiene to over 230,000 schoolchildren in gaza, made possible by a grant from the government of the uae. Access to safe drinking water is a global public health priority. In the gaza strip, home to over 2 million people, there is an immediate need for potable water, especially in schools. 125 unrwa schools in gaza will be equipped with desalination units and renewable electric power systems to provide drinking water and promote hygiene education. Each school will have its own desalination unit equipped with a solar power supply to avoid reliance on gaza's weak electric grid. Rvf-led training of school staff and students to build good hygiene habits during the school day as well as at home will help prevent disease transmission. Installation and maintenance of the imported state-of-the-art desalination units will be localized in gaza to strengthen on-the-ground capacity.

Rvf works in partnership with local governments to create sustainable public health programs for children. The largest service accomplishments are programs introducing modern vaccines for children into the national routine vaccination schedules in middle income countries (mics) and publishing the epidemiological results of the programs in peer-reviewed scientific journals, as well as the launch of a major new initiative that provides safe water for drinking and personal hygiene to over 230,000 schoolchildren in gaza, made possible by a grant from the government of the uae. 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. The rvf initiated rotavirus vaccination program for all infants in gaza and the west bank - approximately 135,000 babies annually - continued to be fully sustained by the palestinian ministry of health, which clearly demonstrates that the rvf model of creating sustainable children's health programs works even in politically and economically challenging settings during a pandemic! Vaccination coverage rates are >97%, and health facilities across the west bank and gaza have seen a significant drop in children presenting with acute watery diarrhea since the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine. In partnership with path and with financing from the bmgf rvf completed rotavirus surveillance documenting the impact of the rotavirus vaccine on the disease burden and published the results in the peer-reviewed journal vaccine. Rvf continued its baseline study of rotavirus disease in egypt financed by the bill & melinda gates Foundation (bmgf). The study is part of an initiative to introduce the rotavirus vaccine into the national immunization schedule for children in egypt and to transfer the technology to manufacture the rotavirus vaccine in the country.