Washington D.C, May 2026. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), through an innovation developed by the Comprehensive Immunization Program (CIM), has been selected as a finalist to participate in the fourth cohort of the UN Global Pulse Accelerator Program, out of 185 applications from various projects submitted by 45 United Nations agencies.
Launched in 2023, the UN Global Pulse Accelerator is the United Nations program designed to turn promising innovative ideas led by the UN into real, large-scale impact, ensuring that exceptional pilot projects reach more communities through adaptable delivery models and future-proofing strategies.
The project submitted by CIM is called PAHOabc, an innovative tool to transform the use of Electronic Immunization Records (EIRs) in the Americas. It was created to address a key gap in the use of immunization data: although countries have made progress in digitizing nominal records, this data—which represents millions of individual vaccinations—remains underutilized due to technical and analytical limitations. This situation prevents the timely identification of coverage gaps, at-risk populations, and actual patterns of access to vaccination services, which perpetuates inequities, limits the ability to make evidence-based decisions, prevent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, and improve the efficient use of resources.
PAHOabc offers a standardized analytical framework, accompanied by a technical manual and an open-source package in R, which enables national teams to integrate, analyze, and visualize complex RNVe data beyond traditional coverage indicators. The approach enables advanced analyses—such as vaccination coverage by residence/place of occurrence, birth cohorts, complete schedules, and nominal dropout/withdrawal, among others—facilitating timely, evidence-based decisions.
The innovation has been co-developed with countries for over a decade, alongside partners such as the CDC, WHO, GAVI, UNICEF, PATH, and BMGF. It has been successfully piloted in Bolivia and Uruguay; it is currently being implemented in El Salvador, Panama, and Paraguay. The results are already showing an impact: from improved data quality (identification of fragmented records in Panama) to the characterization of actual patterns of health mobility that enable more equitable planning (Uruguay, 320,000 doses analyzed).
PAHOabc places equity at the center, promoting analyses disaggregated by sex, geography, and socioeconomic variables, as well as an inclusive and rights-based approach (zero doses, remote populations, mobility, among others). Its open-source nature ensures sustainability, scalability, local ownership, and country autonomy.
Being selected from among nearly 200 applications reaffirms the relevance and transformative potential of PAHOabc and PAHO. With the support of the UN Global Pulse Accelerator Program, PAHO seeks to consolidate a sustainable scaling strategy, strengthen the integration of the tool into national systems, and expand the regional community of practice for the advanced use of immunization data.The funding and knowledge generated will drive technical improvements, new indicators, and country-centered adoption models, accelerating the vision of a Region that fully utilizes its data to better protect its populations.
For more information, visit: UN Global Pulse
