Advocating for efforts to protect African children, families, and communities from the threat of infectious diseases : report of the First International African Vaccinology Conference
Date
2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
African Field Epidemiology Network
Abstract
One means of improving healthcare workers' knowledg
e of and attitudes to vaccines is through running v
accine conferences which are accessible,
affordable, and relevant to their everyday work. Va
rious vaccinology conferences are held each year wo
rldwide. These meetings focus heavily on
basic science with much discussion about new develo
pments in vaccines, and relatively little coverage
of policy, advocacy, and communication
issues. A negligible proportion of delegates at the
se conferences come from Africa, home to almost 40%
of the global burden of vaccine-
preventable diseases. To the best of our knowledge,
no major vaccinology conference has ever been held
on the African continent apart from
World Health Organization (WHO) meetings. The conte
nt of the first International African Vaccinology C
onference was planned to be different; to
focus on the science, with a major part of discussi
ons being on clinical, programmatic, policy, and ad
vocacy issues. The conference was held in
Cape Town, South Africa, from 8 to 11 November 2012
. The theme of the conference was “Advocating for e
fforts to protect African children,
families, and communities from the threat of infect
ious diseases”. There were more than 550 registered
participants from 55 countries (including
37 African countries). There were nine pre-conferen
ce workshops, ten plenary sessions, and 150 oral an
d poster presentations. The conference
discussed the challenges to universal immunisation
in Africa as well as the promotion of dialogue and
communication on immunisation among all
stakeholders. There was general acknowledgment that
giant strides have been made in Africa since the g
lobal launch of the Expanded Programme
on Immunisation in 1974. For example, there has bee
n significant progress in introducing new and under
-utilised vaccines; including hepatitis
B, Haemophilus influenza type b, pneumococcal conju
gate, rotavirus, meningococcal A conjugate, and hum
an papillomavirus vaccines. In May
2012, African countries endorsed the Global Vaccine
Action Plan at the World Health Assembly. However,
more than six million children remain
incompletely vaccinated in Africa leading to more t
han one million vaccine-preventable deaths annually
. In addition, there are persistent problems
with leadership and planning, vaccine stock managem
ent, supply chain capacity and quality, provider-pa
rent communication, and financial
sustainability. The conference delegates agreed to
move from talking to taking concrete actions around
children's health, and to ensure that
African governments commit to saving children's liv
es. They would advocate for lower costs of immunisa
tion programmes n Africa, perhaps through bulk buying and improved administration of
vaccine rollout through the New Partnership for Afr
ica's Development.
Description
CITATION: Wiysonge, C. S., et al. 2016. Advocating for efforts to protect African children, families, and communities from the threat of infectious diseases : report of the First International African Vaccinology Conference. The Pan African Medical Journal, 23:53, doi:10.11604/pamj.2016.23.53.9097.
The original publication is available at http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com
The original publication is available at http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com
Keywords
Vaccine-preventable diseases, Communicable diseases -- Vaccination, Immunization -- Africa, Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP)
Citation
Wiysonge, C. S., et al. 2016. Advocating for efforts to protect African children, families, and communities from the threat of infectious diseases : report of the First International African Vaccinology Conference. The Pan African Medical Journal, 23:53, doi:10.11604/pamj.2016.23.53.9097