9.1 Global vaccine action plan

The Executive Board (EB) was invited to take note of the progress and provide guidance on the proposed framework for monitoring and evaluation and accountability, and the plan to operationalize the global vaccine action plan.

Member States (MS) welcomed the action plan, which was already approved by the 65WHA, and recognized the importance of a strong coordination between WHO, UNICEF and other stakeholders to meet the proposed objectives. There was a broad agreement, especially among low and middle income countries, on the effectiveness of the Global Action Plan as a tool to improve and consolidate national immunization strategies.

Several countries asked for more clarification on the proposed indicators and, at the same time, highlighted the importance of strengthening monitoring and evaluation activities locally as well as globally. Indeed, the goal-level indicators and targets would represent a basis for both a self assessment and an international comparison. In particular China asked for the introduction, among the indicators, of the child survival and for the support of WHO in the evaluation process to be implemented.

Cuba, backed by Ecuador, stressed the importance of strengthening the technical capacity for vaccine production at local level through the technology transfer and highlighted the benefit of the south-south cooperation by presenting their local experiences.

Malaysia was the only country that raised some concerns about the role that the private sector can play behind the NGOs in pushing for the introduction of new vaccines.

MSF International was the only NGO that took the floor and drew the attention to two unmet targets. On one hand, the Global Action Plan is not enough ambitious with respect to the deliverability of vaccines: it is crucial to develop more stable and easy-to-deliver formulations for those preventable diseases that still affect many children worldwide. On the other hand the Global Action Plan doesn’t consider the vaccine affordability and the challenge of the price that should be tracked with an appropriate indicator. According to MSF International these two factors risk undermining the praised effectiveness of the Global Action Plan.

The Assistant DG (Family, women’s and children’s health) reassured that the suggestion made by Member States will be included in the document to be submitted to the WHA. She also commended the introduction of new vaccine (such as pneumococco, rotavirus and HPV vaccines) intended as powerful means to achieve better health for children and women.

PHM comment post-EB