Kate O’Brien, Director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO
World Immunization Week (WIW) 2023, which ended on April 30, marked the beginning of the “The Big Catch-up,” a global push to highlight the number of children who missed essential vaccines during the pandemic vaccinate and support countries return to pre-pandemic vaccination levels. My deepest appreciation goes to everyone who took part in making this campaign memorable while we keep the momentum around “The Big Catch-up” moving forward.
On World Malaria Day 2023, within the theme “Time to deliver zero malaria: invest, innovate, implement“, we recognized the power of immunization to further reduce child illness and death from malaria. Tragically, one child dies of malaria every minute. According to the latest World malaria report, there were an estimated 247 million new cases of malaria in 2021. Continued investment in the development and deployment of new malaria vaccines and next-generation tools will be key to achieving the 2030 global malaria targets. A second malaria vaccine, the R21/Matrix-M (R21) vaccine, if approved, could help close the sizable gap between supply and demand and further reduce child illness and death from malaria. If implemented broadly, this vaccine could save tens of thousands of lives each year. To deliver this vaccine to more children at risk, WHO, Gavi, UNICEF and others are working to rapidly increase supply to protect more children and save more lives.
Many efforts are happening this month around HPV vaccine revitalization – centrally embedded in the Big catch up and WIW activities, countries are encouraged to catchup missed cohorts of girls and improve coverage. As part of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, WHO has informed all countries about the new HPV vaccine programme funding opportunities for the revitalization efforts. During the WHA a side event is organized on Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative with a strong focus on HPV vaccination. Recently we have observed that more than 20 countries followed WHO’s call to optimize the HPV vaccine schedule as per the WHO Position on HPV vaccines (Dec 2022) and we developed a dashboard to follow other countries that move to 1 dose schedule. In the coming weeks several regional TAGs will discuss the HPV recommendations and develop regional recommendations.
Despite the historically low number of measles cases reported over the last 36 months since the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic, measles has not gone away. Measles incidence rates remain concerning in 2023 with high rates in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia – highlighting the risk that large immunity gaps pose. The number countries with measles outbreaks characterized as “large and disruptive” has continue to slowly increase from 16 for the 12-month period from August 2020 to July 2021 to 34 in the 12-month period from March 2022 – February 2023 (an approximately 50% increase). Responding to measles cases and outbreaks and closing measles immunity gaps in 2023 and 2024 continues to be global, regional and national priority.
This year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), 21 to 30 May, marks the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 75th anniversary, under the theme “WHO at 75: Saving lives, driving health for all”. We welcome you to read the Director General’s welcoming remarks here acknowledging the tremendous achievements and contributions of immunizations and vaccines to global public health in the past 75 years. To celebrate this occasion, the Health Assembly includes a series of six strategic roundtables in the official programme, to reflect on the Organization’s achievements and to examine current and future challenges facing global public health. We are delighted that the WHO Director General will host a strategic roundtable on “A safer and healthier tomorrow by restoring essential immunization today”. The session will highlight the vital role of communities in the Big Catch-up ambitions, and outline the roles of local, national and global stakeholders in driving forward progress in immunization. This session will be a frank and open discussion about best practices and experiences of health workers, communities and countries. We welcome our staff and Partners attending the WHA to attend this session on Friday 26 May, 13:00 to 14:15 CET at the UN Palais, Room XVIII. For those not able to join in person, the strategic roundtables are available via webcast.
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