One of the great privileges I’ve had in the past 25 years was working with the dedicated people at Unicef, the US Fund for Unicef, Becton Dickinson (BD), the Gates Foundation and others to establish systems, forge partnerships and assemble resources necessary to end one of the most terrible killers of newborns and their mothers - Maternal & Neonatal Tetanus or MNT.

It is thrilling to report that MNT has been proven to be eliminated in 14 of 57 countries and five states in India. Dr. Francois Gasse reports in August 2009 that WHO is validating elimination in an additional 12 countries and five more state in India. In ten years, roughly half the countries in the world will no longer have to say that MNT is killer of newborns and/or their mothers if they keep up their immunization efforts. A new partnership with Pampers helps keep the project moving forward.

Led by Dr. Francois Gasse who was brought to Unicef from WHO by Chip Lyons of the US Fund for Unicef  in 1998, the challenge was to eliminate the infection as a public health problem by immunizing women of child bearing age with the cheap, readily available Tetanus vaccine. The spread of Hepatitis and HIV from injections, tremendous cultural resistance to immunizing women, misinformation and little to no public health infrastructure stood in the way.

Dr. Gasse and his small staff, leadership from BD who donated funds and auto-destruct syringes, Chip Lyons and Dianne Whitty from the US Fund for Unicef and funders including the Gates Foundation, Ronald McDonald Charities, ZontaInternational, other Committees of Unicef and others overcame great odds.  People at all levels of the partnership did critically important work - Michelle Chiola Petronio at DCA, Charlie Adams, Meg Gardinier  and Jim Coney at the US Fund, Dr. Zeil Rosenberg at BD and Katherine Winter at Unicef all did so much.

They deserve to be recognized and celebrated.

Francois reports this week that 60,000 deaths still occur every year from this wholly preventable infection and $63 million is needed to keep the effort going and get the job done.

Congratulations to everyone involved in the great success of the MNT campaign and thank you for the honor to have played an instrumental role from 1999 to 2002 in setting the program in motion that has saved so many lives.

- Brad Bauler