A major focus of the WHO’s Global Influenza Programme relates to the annual recommendations of the seasonal influenza vaccine formulations for the Northern and Southern hemisphere vaccines while the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) recommends the WHO’s position on seasonal influenza vaccines. The annual recommendations of seasonal influenza vaccine formulations are supported by National Influenza Centres (NIC) which share epidemiological, laboratory information as well as influenza viruses or clinical specimens and the WHO Collaborating Centres (WHO CC) which receive representative isolates from NICs for antigenic and genetic analyses. Both these entities are an integral part of the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS).
Additionally, the WHO CCs, jointly with key national reference laboratories, conduct annual studies on whether the current seasonal vaccines induce satisfactory antibody levels to new influenza virus strains. They also make available high-yielding reassortant viruses for seasonal influenza vaccine production as well as vaccine potency testing reagents.
In addition to determining the composition of the seasonal influenza vaccines, efforts are made by the WHO to provide Member States with strategic guidance, technical support, and coordination of activities essential to make their health systems better prepared against seasonal, zoonotic, and pandemic influenza threats to individuals and populations. As part of WHO South East Asia Region’s (SEAR) contribution to future introduction of health worker vaccinations against seasonal Influenza, key informant interviews were planned together with the Global Influenza Programme (GIP) on experience sharing and best practices of health worker vaccination programmes including existing programmes against seasonal influenza in SEAR as part of the Gavi Influenza Learning Agenda.
The Infectious Hazard Management (IHM) Unit of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme and the Immunization and Vaccine Development (IVD)unit of the Communicable Diseases Surveillance (CDS) department at the WHO’s Regional Office for the South East Asia (SEARO) coordinated the project considering its importance with regard to the introduction of seasonal influenza vaccines among frontline health care workers in SEAR. The key informants were key focal points from WHO country offices as well as designated officials from the respective Ministries of Health from Maldives, Bhutan, and Timor Leste. Interviews were held in late November 2021.
The overall goal of the project was to identify best practices across health worker vaccine programmes to better understand key lessons, challenges, and support structures. The country interviews focused on understanding enablers, barriers and lessons learned from developing/strengthening national health worker vaccination programmes for influenza and other vaccine preventable diseases.
Countries were asked to share their thoughts around how the health worker vaccination (HWV) programme was run in their country. Also, what according to them was the focus of their HWV programme and if it was designed as a programme with a rural or urban focus or both and what their main learnings from the process were. The discussions and brainstorming provided a platform for the countries to outline the key components for the HWV programme that would be the most suitable and relevant for their country. Importantly, it looked at how routine versus emergency health worker vaccination programmes should be designed and what learnings they could incorporate from countries that had also supported the COVID-19 vaccine introductions for health care workers.
The discussions took up aspects related to enablers and barriers for different health worker vaccination programmes, the role of stakeholders and challenges faced on the supply and demand side. It looked at the potential funding streams. For countries that have implemented HWV programmes, they were encouraged to share findings from any evaluations that were done, such as post introduction evaluations (PIE) or intra action reviews (IAR). They were also probed on whether vaccines should be made compulsory or mandatory for any category of health workers.
A draft report has been shared with the participating countries for their review. The insights from the interviews will be used to inform Gavi’s deliberations on potential support (such as vaccine doses/funding) for seasonal influenza vaccination of health workers as part of their future Global Vaccine Investment Strategy. IHM and IVD units intend to support MS in the WHO SEA Region for rolling out seasonal influenza vaccines for HCWs in the event of positive consideration by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance as an important investment in the times to come.