The Role of Community Pharmacists in Travel Health and Vaccination in Switzerland.

This review presents the Swiss strategy initiated over the last several years to implement vaccination by community pharmacists. National health authorities aimed to integrate community pharmacists in the National Vaccination Strategy (NVS) in order to increase the vaccination rate in the Swiss population. To support this aim, universities and the Swiss Association of Pharmacists developed pre- and post-graduate education programmes on vaccination for pharmacists. Finally, each Swiss canton (sovereign for health-related aspects) set proper regulations to authorize pharmacists to vaccinate and to determine which vaccines could be administered. As of September 2018, 19 cantons (out of 26) had authorized influenza vaccinations under the sole responsibility of an accredited community pharmacist. Additional vaccinations were available in 13 cantons (e.g., tick-borne encephalitis or hepatitis A, B, or A and B). Such implementation in other countries should follow a similar top-down (following a national strategy to improve vaccination coverage) and stepwise (starting with influenza to demonstrate the competencies of community pharmacists) strategy, supported by the development of research, education and accreditation. The development of health advice related to travels in community pharmacies should follow the same development in Switzerland. Currently, it offers the opportunity for strengthening travellers' safety, beyond vaccination issues.

Immunisation coverage of adults: a vaccination counselling campaign in the pharmacies in Switzerland.

OBJECTIVE: To assess vaccination coverage for adults living in Switzerland. METHODS: Through a media campaign, the general population was invited during 1 month to bring their vaccination certificates to the pharmacies to have their immunisation status evaluated with the software viavac©, and to complete a questionnaire. RESULTS: A total of 496 pharmacies in Switzerland participated in the campaign, of which 284 (57%) submitted valid vaccination information. From a total of 3,634 participants in the campaign, there were 3,291 valid cases (participants born ≤ 1992) and 1,011 questionnaires completed. Vaccination coverage for the participants was 45.9% and 34.6% for five and six doses of diphtheria, 56.4% and 44.0% for tetanus and 66.3% and 48.0% for polio, respectively. Coverage estimates for one and two doses of measles vaccine were 76.5% and 49.4%, respectively, for the birth cohort 1967-1992 and 4.0% and 0.8%, respectively, for the cohort ≤ 1966. There was a significant difference in coverage for most vaccinations between the two aforementioned birth cohorts. A plot of the measles vaccine coverage over time shows that the increase in coverage correlated with policy changes in the Swiss Immunisation Schedule. CONCLUSIONS: Despite selection bias and low participation, this study indicates that vaccination coverage for the basic recommended immunisations in the adult population in Switzerland is suboptimal. More efforts using various means and methods are needed to increase immunisation coverage in adolescents before they leave school. An established method to determine vaccination coverage for the general population could provide invaluable insights into the effects of changes in vaccination policies and disease outbreaks.