Experts and participants from the 5 priority countries. Amman, 8 August 2022 – Stakeholders from 5 priority countries in the Region identified approaches that could be adopted in their national seasonal influenza vaccination programme during a meeting conducted in Amman, Jordan, from 24 to 26 July 2022.
Immunization and influenza focal points from ministries of health and WHO country offices, supported by technical experts from the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, WHO headquarters, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Partnership for Influenza Vaccine Introduction (PIVI) programme attended the meeting.
While influenza causes high morbidity and mortality around the world and safe and effective influenza vaccines have been available for more than 60 years, uptake of influenza vaccine remains suboptimal in the Region.
The meeting aimed to build on the foundations of functional influenza surveillance systems and the lessons learned from COVID-19 vaccine deployment.
Over the 3-day meeting, participants from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, and a range of experts worked together to understand the situation of influenza vaccination globally and regionally, as well as to review available strategic frameworks, such as the life course immunization strategy and regional roadmap on strengthening influenza vaccine use. This helped to inform participants of the influenza situation and the support available to them before working as country teams to develop their individual country workplans.
Participants discussed different approaches for the seasonal influenza vaccination programme.
Despite the differing situations of countries, much of their workplans were similar in terms of the areas they wanted to focus on, such as the generation of country-specific data, development and updates to policy, including review of the responsible parties for influenza vaccination, dissemination of the updated and new policy, development of a communication plan and continuous advocacy, capacity-building, and education for all stakeholders.
WHO and partners will continue to support countries to realize the implementation of their individual workplans over the coming months. They also aim to expand this targeted approach to other countries in the Region as these priority countries strengthen their seasonal influenza vaccination programmes. This will contribute to the main goal of enhancing the availability, accessibility and utilization of seasonal influenza vaccine in the Region to reduce influenza-associated morbidity and mortality among high-risk groups and other groups of national priority.
