Terms of Reference

The Working Group will be requested to review the current global immunization and surveillance data collection, its use and impact as well as limitations and needs and propose recommendations to improve quality, access to, and use of immunization data for enhancing immunization programme performance at national and subnational levels. These recommendations will then be presented for review by SAGE.

The Working Group will specifically be asked to:

• Take stock of data availability and determine if there are unmet immunization monitoring and evaluation data needs at global level, and guide reporting processes;
• Review existing and new draft standards and guidance on immunization monitoring and vaccine-preventable disease (VPD) surveillance data to identify gaps, revisions, and areas that require updates;
• Review and assess the current ‘state’ of immunization and VPD-surveillance data quality at country and global level;
• Review evidence on:
1. factors that may cause and/or limit access to quality and use of immunization and VPD-surveillance data for decision-making at different levels;
2. the effectiveness (including where possible, cost-effectiveness) of interventions for improving access to, improving quality of, or promoting the use of data at national and subnational levels;
• Review the status of information systems that collect immunization and VPD-surveillance data, the availability of modern information technologies, and their current and potential future role in supporting the collection, management, analysis and use of immunization and surveillance data;
• Identify knowledge gaps and create a prioritized research agenda.

It is anticipated that the Working Group will complete its reporting to SAGE by April 2019.

Composition

SAGE Members

• Jaleela Jawad: Ministry of Health, Bahrain (Chair of the Working Group)
• Noni MacDonald: Dalhousie University, IWK Health Centre, Canada

Experts

• George Bonsu: Ghana Health Service, Ghana
• Michael Edelstein: Public Health England, United Kingdom
• Hashim Ali Elzein Elmousaad: Independent Consultant, Pakistan
• Pradeep Haldar: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India
• Claudio Lanata: Instituto de Investigacion Nutricional, Peru
• Ana Morice: Independent Consultant, Costa Rica
• Mimi Mynak: Jigme Dorji Wangchuk National Referral Hospital, Ministry of Health, Bhutan
• Edward Nicol: South African Medical Research Council; Stellenbosch University, South Africa
• Nargis Rahimi: Shifo Foundation, Sweden
• Heather Scobie: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States of America

WHO Secretariat

• Carolina Danovaro

Declaration of interests

All members completed a Declaration of Interests and three members reported relevant interests. All interests were assessed not to constitute a conflict of interest. It was concluded that all members could take part in full in all of the proceedings of the Working Group. The reported relevant interests are summarized below:

Hashim Ali Elzein Elmoussad

• Serves as a consultant for the Pakistan National Polio Eradication Operation Center (NEOC) and the Pakistan National Stop Transmission of Polio program (N-STOP). This interest was assessed as personal, non-specific and financially significant*.

Michael Edelstein

• Serves as consultant on infectious disease epidemiology for the Centre for Global Health Security, Chatham House. This interest was assessed as personal, non-specific and financially significant*.
• His research unit (Department of immunisation, hepatitis and blood safety, Public Health England) has provided vaccine manufacturer with post marketing surveillance data on vaccine preventable diseases. A cost recovery charge was given for the reports. This interest was assessed as non-personal, specific and financially significant*.
• Received a travel grant for a coverage survey workshop from UNICEF in 2017. This interest was assessed as personal, specific and financially insignificant*.

Claudio Lanata

• Provided technical advice on the hexavalent vaccine to GSK in 2016. This interest was assessed as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Served as principal investigator of a dengue vaccine trial sponsored by Sanofi Pasteur in 2013. This interest was assessed as non-personal, non-specific and financially significant*.

* According to WHO's Guidelines for Declaration of Interests (WHO expert), an interest is considered "personal" if it generates financial or non-financial gain to the expert, such as consulting income or a patent. "Specificity" states whether the declared interest is a subject matter of the meeting or work to be undertaken. An interest has "financial significance" if the honoraria, consultancy fee or other received funding, including those received by expert's organization, from any single vaccine manufacturer or other vaccine-related company exceeds 5,000 USD in a calendar year. Likewise, a shareholding in any one vaccine manufacturer or other vaccine-related company in excess of 1,000 USD would also constitute a “significant shareholding”.