Developing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations during the pandemic: The experience of Serbia's Expert Committee on Immunization.

A National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) is a multi-disciplinary body of national experts that provide evidence-based recommendations to policy-makers to assist them in making informed immunization policy and programme decisions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, NITAGs faced many challenges in making evidence-based recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines due to the rapidly evolving situation with new vaccine products available in a short time period and limited data on vaccine effectiveness. The authors reviewed the process used by Serbia's NITAG, which is called the Serbian Expert Committee on Immunization, to develop COVID-19 vaccine recommendations during the pandemic. The article examines the challenges and successes faced by the committee. Serbia's expert committee used the best available evidence to develop over forty recommendations on all aspects of COVID-19 vaccination. These expert committee recommendations facilitated the early procurement and successful roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines, guidance for vaccination of individuals at the highest risk, and high COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country. The availability of five COVID-19 vaccines in Serbia was an advantage for the successful roll-out but posed challenges for the expert committee. Serbia's expert committee plans to use the experience and best practices developed during the pandemic to improve and expand its work moving forward.

COVID-19 vaccine policy development in a sample of 44 countries - Key findings from a December 2021 survey of National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs).

National Immunization Technical Advisory Committees (NITAGs) are tasked with the responsibility of guiding ministries of health and national immunization programmes in their policy development processes. Many NITAGs rely on evidence reviewed by the World Health Organization's (WHO) Strategic Group of Experts(SAGE) on immunization and aim to adapt WHO's recommendations to their respective contexts. This relationship took on exceptional importance since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which NITAGs have expressed a notable struggle to craft appropriate policies on population prioritization and vaccine utilization in the face of supply constraints and complex programmatic and delivery logistics. This online survey was conducted to assess the usefulness of the SAGE guidance documents for COVID-19 vaccine policies and to examine the persisting needs and challenges facing NITAGs. Results confirmed that SAGE recommendations concerning COVID-19 vaccines are easy to access, understand, and adapt. They have been found to be comprehensive and timely under the data and time constrained circumstances confronting SAGE. The Global NITAG Network (GNN) appears to be the most popular vehicle for addressing questions among high income countries, in contrast to lower income countries who favour WHO Country or Regional Offices. NITAGs place much value on interaction with other NITAGs, which requires facilitation and could benefit from increased opportunities, especially within regions. It is further noted that some NITAGs have had to tackle issues during the pandemic not typically considered by SAGE, such as supply chain logistics and vaccine demand. Learning from the COVID-19 experience offers opportunities to strengthen NITAGs and the pandemic recovery effort through the development of more concrete procedures and consideration of more varied types of data, including implementation effectiveness and uptake data. There is also an opportunity for an increasing involvement of Country Office WHO personnel to support NITAGs, while ensuring information and evidence needs of countries are adequately reflected in SAGE deliberations.

Nepal measles outbreak response immunization during COVID-19: A risk-based intervention strategy.

In 2020, National Immunization Programme (NIP) of Nepal implemented a measles outbreak response immunization (ORI) campaign, which was additional to an ongoing preventive measles-rubella SIA campaign. Both campaigns were implemented during ongoing COVID-19 transmission. By April, 220 measles cases and two deaths were confirmed from eight districts of Nepal. The NIP triangulated information from surveillance (measles and COVID-19), measles immunization performance and immunity profile, programme capacities and community engagement and applied a logical decision-making framework to the collated data to inform 'Go/No-Go' decisions for ORI interventions. This was reviewed by the National Immunization Advisory Committee (NIAC) for endorsement. Outbreak response with non-selective immunization (ORI), vitamin-A administration and case management were implemented in affected municipalities of four districts, while in the remaining districts outbreak response without ORI were undertaken. The structure and iterative application of this logical framework has been described. ORI was implemented without interrupting the ongoing measles-rubella vaccination campaign which had targeted children from 9 to 59 months of age. The age group for ORI was same as SIA in one sub-district area, while for the other three sub-district areas it was from 6 months to 15 years of age. More than 32,000 persons (97% coverage) were vaccinated in ORI response. Overall measles incidence decreased by 98% after ORI. The daily incidence rate of measles was 94 times higher (95% confidence interval: 36.11 - 347.62) before the ORI compared to two weeks after ORI until year end. Close attention to surveillance and other data to inform actions and seamless collaboration between NIP and core immunization partners (WHO, UNICEF), with guidance from NIAC were key elements in successful implementation. This was an example of feasible application of the global framework for implementation of a mass vaccination campaign during COVID-19 through application of a simple decision-making logical framework.

Supporting National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups in the WHO European Region in developing national COVID-19 vaccination recommendations through online communication platform.

National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups are groups of multi-disciplinary experts that provide scientific advice to policy makers to enable them to make informed immunization policy and programme decisions. NITAGs faced challengesusing their routine approach to develop recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic. In response, the WHORegional Office for Europe (Regional Office), with the support of theRobert Koch Institute, developedan innovative approach of a series of webinars, provision of materials, and remote technical assistance to address these challenges. Polls conducted during webinars were used to tailor future webinars and evaluate the effectiveness of these interventions. According to poll results, 76% of participants found the webinars and resources shared very useful in their work on COVID-19 vaccination.The Regional Office plans to build further upon the scope of online communication and establish a regional online platform for NITAGs to further support NITAGs and build capacity.

Evidence-informed vaccination decision-making in countries: Progress, challenges and opportunities.

Countries face an increasingly complex vaccination landscape. As well as ever-changing infectious disease epidemiology, the number and diversity of vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine products, and vaccine technologies continue to increase. To ensure that vaccination decision-making is transparent, country-owned and informed by sound scientific evidence, many countries have established national immunization technical advisory groups (NITAGs) to provide independent expert advice. The past decade has seen substantial growth in NITAG numbers and functionality, and there is now a need to consolidate this progress, by further capacity building, to ensure that NITAGs are responsive to the changing face of immunization over the next decade.

Immunization governance: Mandatory immunization in 28 Global NITAG Network countries.

International trends currently favour greater use of mandatory immunization. There has been little academic consideration or comparison of the existence and scope of mandatory immunization internationally. In this paper, we examine mandatory immunization in 28 Global NITAG (National Immunization Technical Advisory Group) Network (GNN) countries, including countries from every WHO region and World Bank income level classification. We found that although mandatory immunization programs, or mandatory elements within broader immunization programs, are relatively common, jurisdictions vary significantly with respect to the immunizations required, population groups affected, grounds for exemptions, and penalties for non-compliance. We also observed some loose associations with geography and income level. Based on these data, we categorized policies into a spectrum ranging from Narrow to Broad scope.