WHO is gathering national and regional insights on developing and expanding vaccination programmes for health workers in an effort to identify ingredients for success.
The insights are being collected as part of Gavi’s learning agenda for pandemic influenza, which aims to determine if and how vaccinating health workers can benefit epidemic and pandemic influenza preparedness. This in turn contributes to Gavi’s strategic objective to support countries to introduce and scale up coverage of vaccines for prevention of endemic and epidemic diseases. It also aligns with WHO’s Global Influenza Strategy to prevent, control and prepare for pandemic influenza.
The insights on vaccination programmes for health reflect experiences from all over the world, across many different types of health work vaccination programmes.
In late 2021, we identified and interviewed key national and regional informants, asking each one about their motivations for developing health worker vaccination programmes as well as their views on what makes such programmes successful and sustainable.
To maximize learning opportunities for best practice, informants were not only asked about their experiences with seasonal influenza vaccination programmes, but also with other routine and emergency health worker vaccination programmes, including for example Hepatitis B and COVID-19.
We are now collating insights from these interviews to identify key components for a successful health worker vaccination programme. By reviewing how seasonal influenza and other health worker vaccination programmes were used during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also hope to identify opportunities for leveraging existing systems for broader pandemic response.
Key findings will be anonymised and shared with Gavi to inform their upcoming Vaccine Investment Strategy. We also plan to share lessons learned more broadly, through a peer reviewed publication and various other communications products.
