Sabin and Population Services International (PSI) Partner to Advance Community-Based Immunization and Primary Healthcare Delivery

The Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin) and Population Services International (PSI) today announced a new partnership to generate evidence and advance innovative approaches to community-centered immunization and primary healthcare delivery, with a focus on the role of pharmacies and other private-sector providers in expanding access to essential health services.

The collaboration brings together PSI's experience implementing, scaling, and strengthening health delivery systems in communities with Sabin's expertise in immunization, generating and translating evidence for vaccine decision making, and connecting countries experience for policy and program implementation. Together, the organizations will develop and test practical, scalable approaches to reaching more people with high-quality, accessible preventive and primary health services.

Joint research and evidence generation

The partnership will initially focus on developing a joint research agenda and generating evidence on the cost-effectiveness of pharmacy-based immunization, health system integration, and innovative models for expanding access to preventive healthcare.

Through the collaboration, PSI and Sabin will also share learnings with policymakers, practitioners, and global health partners and contribute to conversations on how countries can better leverage existing community-based and private sector health infrastructure to strengthen immunization and primary health systems.

"The future of primary healthcare will depend on connecting the providers people already know and trust with the broader health system," said Michael Holscher, President of Population Services International. "By bringing together PSI's implementation experience and Sabin's immunization expertise, we can test innovative approaches, continue to generate evidence on what works, and help countries unlock the potential of pharmacies and other private-sector providers to strengthen immunization systems and expand equitable access to care. We're excited to begin this journey and learn together what's possible."

Urgent work to close access gaps

"This work is urgent," said Rebecca Martin, PhD, President of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute. "The recently released WHO/UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization Coverage (WUENIC) found that 13.5 million children received no vaccines in their first year of life in 2025. Closing that gap requires reaching people where they are and connecting them to high-quality services through providers they know and trust. Sabin knows the powerful impact of partnerships that combine country experience, implementation expertise, and evidence to expand equitable access to immunization."

Pharmacies are among the most accessible and trusted healthcare touchpoints within communities, positioning them to play an important role expanding access to immunization services. PSI is currently implementing pharmacy-based immunization pilots in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria in partnership with governments, pharmacy councils, professional associations, and local communities. To date, PSI has trained more than 150 pharmacists, achieving knowledge gains of over 32 percentage point following training, and has also trained more than 150 community health workers to support community engagement and vaccine uptake. Across more than 13 regions in the three countries, these efforts have contributed to the delivery of over 40,000 vaccine doses, including human papillomavirus (HPV) for adolescent girls, Tetanus-Diphtheria for pregnant women and women of reproductive age, and routine childhood immunizations for infants and children. The pilots are focused on developing safe, integrated, and government-aligned service delivery models, informed by PSI's pre-implementation qualitative research and ongoing implementation science.

The partnership will build on growing evidence and country experience to advance the scale-up of pharmacy-based immunization within existing health systems, policies, and sustainable financing mechanisms. Together, this collaboration will generate actionable evidence on how pharmacies and other private-sector providers can expand immunization coverage and equitable access to vaccines, strengthen their integration into national health and immunization programs and referral networks, and create opportunities for countries to exchange knowledge and learnings to identify scalable approaches and translate real-world implementation experience into stronger policy and practice.