Speaker: Laura Bowen & Bernadece Boda from the Census Bureau

President Beers called the meeting to order. 

No guests attending today. 

Pledge of allegiance was recited. 

Nikki Subkowski shared words of grace. 

Remembrance Run was announced for Sept. by Jennifer Casey. Here is the link to sign up: https://runsignup.com/Race/MI/TraverseCity/911HonorRun 

Charities and Camps nominations are next week. Please participate. It’s an important function of what we do here. 

Program introduced by Dan Buron. Laura Bowen is covering lower Michigan and Bernadece is covering northern Michigan with the native communities in several states. 

Laura shared a PowerPoint explaining how important the census is from a business perspective. 675 billion annually for 10 years in community and program funding. We need to be committed to equity and equality in sharing resources. This money is based in part on census data. 

Grand Traverse County is using the mobile questionnaire assistance in areas with high traffic with census employees. Non-response homes are getting help. There is follow-up mailings. 

We can help by sharing on social media to remind people that the census is going on and the ways it can be done. You can also host an MQA – a census site. Laura can help with either of these options. 

Bernadece explained how the tribes that are federally recognized are a government to government status. They are countries within a country. All the laws for every tribe in Michigan are different with different languages. Every tribal government has designated someone within their government to work with the census. Without their permission, the census cannot enter their land. Bernadece says she has a solid understanding of these systems to help bridge the gaps. Some of the reservations weren’t allowing census workers on their land. Bernadece is assigned to help with this and works with all the tribes to help them complete the census. They are using videos and social media to encourage Native Americans to complete the census. 

Dan Buron asked why some areas have low response rates. Laura answered that many of our homes up here are second homes. Also there are many rural homes that do not have regular addresses that receive mail. A census worker has to visit each of these homes. Also, lots of people up here do not have access to internet. Additionally, some people do not trust the government and do not want to be counted. 

Outbreaks of Circulating Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus type 2 are popping up in a number of countries since the switch to a vaccine that only attacks type two polio in April of 2016.  Some of these outbreaks are spreading over more than one country.  As a comparison, in the three years before the switch there were 8 cVDPV2 outbreaks in five countries.  Since the switch, there have been 47 cVDPV2 outbreaks in 20 countries.  While outbreaks were anticipated, what was not anticipated was the number and scale of these outbreaks, some of which have proven very difficult to stop.

Circulating Vaccine Derived cases are exactly what the label indicates, that in countries, particularly in Africa where there is a growing cadre of children without immunity to polio from infrequent and inadequate vaccination programs, it is rare but possible, to find cases of Circulating Vaccine Derived polio.  

This happens because the oral vaccine used in immunization programs is made from the live poliovirus.  It is the same vaccine discovered by Albert Sabin in 1964.  In very rare cases, where campaign quality is poor and not enough children are reached with the vaccine, we run a risk of the live virus occasionally morphing back into a form virulent enough to cause the acute flaccid paralysis that marks the normal polio patient who caught it in the wild. 

The problem is that the only vaccine we have today is the Sabin live-virus vaccine called monovalent Oral Poliovirus Vaccine2 or mOPV2. 

Understand that many cVDPV2 outbreaks in the past have been stopped using the mOPV2.  Because the occurrence of cVDPV2 outbreaks, while serious, is comparatively rare, it is currently the only tool available.

To better address the evolving risk of  cVDPV2, the GPEI partners are working to deploy an additional innovative tool – novel Oral Polio Vaccine type 2 (nOPV2). The vaccine is a modified version of the existing mOPV2, which clinical trials have shown provides comparable protection against poliovirus while being more genetically stable and less likely to revert into a form which can cause paralysis in low immunity settings. The novel vaccine’s increased genetic stability means there is also a reduced risk of seeding new cVDPV2 outbreaks, as is currently experienced with the mOPV2. nOPV2 is being considered for deployment under WHO’s Emergency Use Listing procedure (EUL) to enable rapid field availability. The mOPV2 vaccine will continue to be used until a new and more genetically stable oral polio vaccine, known as nOPV2, which is currently under clinical development, is available.

Accelerating the development and roll-out of a new vaccine to be less likely to seed outbreaks is the current strategy to eradicating the circulating Virus threat in under-immunized populations.

Clinical trials for the nOPV2 are underway.  COVID-19 has had an effect on the development program for the novel vaccine, but development, approval and roll-out of this vaccine remain a top priority.  Works remain on track to have 200 million doses available by the end of 2020.