The Communication Challenge concept thus aims to engage motivated students to come up with a creative video concept to promote immunisation, enhance awareness and improve acceptance. The first prize is EUR 1,000 and a trip to Brussels for the award ceremony.

For further information, please visit the Vaccines Today dedicated webpage or check out the facebook page at www.facebook.com/vaccinestoday 

The winning entry of last year together with the other submissions are available on YouTube here.

The document stresses the importance of ensuring compliance with immunisation programmes on the part of healthcare professionals on the one hand, and of making HCPs active advocates of vaccination and of the safety of vaccines on the other. One of the proposed means to do so is commitment to training at all levels on vaccine-preventable diseases and their complications for HCPs. It is also suggested, among others, that HCPs should play a role in monitoring the implementation of national schedules, and that positive and trustworthy online communications should be easily retrievable through web search engines.

Vaccines Europe is finalising a literature review study consolidating post-2009 evidence in the EU27 on attitudes towards vaccines and vaccination. Preliminary findings point to the fact that only some of vaccination hesitant behaviours can be characterised by a lack of information. Behaviours appear to be primarily permeated by issues of trust or mistrust. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that healthcare professionals play a paramount role in this regard and remain one of the most trustworthy sources of information for the general public amidst growing mistrust in the media and other traditional means of communication. Trusted vaccine information – including through online media – is thus key and should be a multi-stakeholder effort implemented through a coordinated strategy and with an active role to be played by HCPs.

For more information on the event and registration to attend, click here.

Bringing together stakeholders to unite their important immunisation-related work, the goal of the EIW is to increase vaccination coverage by raising awareness of the importance of immunisation. For this purpose during this week national and local initiatives are being organised throughout the Region to raise awareness and increase vaccination uptake.

A good example of the initiatives organised this week is the launch by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) of a Vaccine Scheduler that allows for a comparison of schedules across two countries and enables to view the vaccination calendar by disease for all or a selection of countries. This new platform of vaccination schedules has been developed in collaboration with the Groupe d’Etudes en Preventologie.

Furthermore, in its efforts towards the elimination of measles the ECDC has also developed a Measles Atlas that offers an easy to understand visualisation of the progress towards this goal in each European country.

Public personalities have also joined their efforts to raise awareness on the importance of immunisation. Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, as patron of the WHO regional office for Europe, has issued a statement urging for immunisation in Europe. “Allowing diseases to spread because we have failed to adequately immunise our children is not an option”, states Crown Princess Mary who urges parents, healthcare workers and public health workers to take action as “when it comes to eliminating a disease, there is no room for complacency”.

In parallel, today kicks off in Abu Dhabi the Global Vaccine Summit (24-25 April) co-hosted by Bill gates, His Highness General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The meeting will celebrate the progress made in the Decade of Vaccines to immunise children everywhere and will be focused on sharing best practices, announcing new technical and political commitments and discussing what needs to be done to achieve global child health.

One of the primary focuses of the summit will be to further strengthen the global polio eradication effort. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched in 1988 following the certification of the eradication of smallpox in 1980. Today only three countries (Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan) remain polio-endemic, down from more than 125 in 1988 and 2012 registered 223 cases worldwide.

“Polio is pretty special because once you get an eradication you no longer have to spend money on it; it’s just there as a gift for the rest of time.” Bill Gates said.

European, African and Asian politicians, public health and business leaders will back a $5.5bn plan to eradicate polio within five years and will seek to find the estimated $2.5bn outstanding to fund the intensified vaccination that they hope will eliminate the disease as soon as 2015 and at the latest by 2018.

According to the report, mounting evidence suggests the potential of improving resource allocation and cost-efficiency in the delivery of healthcare goods and services without increasing health spending per se. Better spending at national level is determined not only by how much money is spent, but also how it is spent – which ultimately impacts health status and quality of healthcare provision.

The European Commission and the Economic Policy Committee have therefore identified key priority areas for intervention where structural reforms could accrue savings and contribute to healthcare systems sustainability, including the following:

• Cost-effective provision and use of health services through adequate incentives
• Reducing the unnecessary use of specialist and hospital care
• Better health promotion and disease prevention in and outside the health sector
• Ensure a balanced mix in staff skills
• Improve data collection
• Use HTA more systematically for decision-making processes

While there is broad evidence and support that preventing the onset of diseases can yield cost-saving long-term returns on investment, spending on prevention in EU Member States mounts to 3% of current public health expenditure only.

Prevention covers a wide-array of policies and programmes to enhance quality of life and reduce high treatment costs, from awareness-raising and literacy activities to life-style related measures to reduce the incidence of chronic diseases. The Commission report points to a number of additional measures that authorities could make use of in different settings to enhance health promotion, such as at school, work or in health institutions.

Vaccines Europe strongly supports the need for better health promotion and disease prevention, and believes that the full implementation of national immunisation programmes is crucial to the achievement of the ‘Investing in Health’ vision. This makes the case for (a) the need for increased appropriations to public health prevention programmes as a proportion of overall healthcare spending and (b) evidence-based prioritisation in prevention spending.

Infectious diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the EU; more so with an increasingly elderly population which is more likely to suffer from multiple diseases. Immunisation plays a major role in reducing incidence and impact of numerous vaccine-preventable diseases in these fragile population segments and throughout other stages of life, including adolescence and adulthood. Immunisation keeps individuals healthy, reduces the consequence of illness, and alleviates the burden of disease in individuals affected by specific conditions, such as chronic diseases.

Nevertheless, despite the availability of cost-effective vaccines, their uptake for the prevention of burdensome and costly illnesses in public health, economic, and social terms is often low.

This is due to multiple often hard-to-address factors ranging from vaccinees’ hesitancy and lack of awareness of disease risks to barriers in access and poor information to and training of healthcare professionals. The latter should be a key target of government strategies to ensure the delivery of successful immunisation programmes. Innovative technologies and breakthrough eHealth tools could help overcoming several of these barriers.

Better recognition of the role of immunisation as part of EU Member States prevention strategies should form integral part of efforts to achieve more value for money. In line with the Conclusion of the Commission report, this would enable “smarter spending” rather than “more spending” while contributing to better population health outcomes and economic productivity gains.

Stronger action at EU, national and local level is thus necessary to increase awareness and targeted communications aimed to improve follow-up on immunisation schedules. This is key to ensure that the potential of existing life-saving vaccines is used to the benefits of individuals and society, contributing to the WHO European Region goal of eliminating measles and rubella by 2015.

EIW, the annual health campaign on immunisation promoted by WHO European Region, aims to bring together relevant stakeholders in the set-up of various initiatives that can help Member States to achieve optimal immunisation.

For more information on the campaigns and activities planned for 2013, please visit the official website.

The report highlights the importance of implementing innovative supply-side policies capable of facilitating access to and delivery of vaccines in order to drive up vaccination coverage. It is advocated that these should include measures targeting healthcare professionals, such as e-training tools and guidance on vaccination as well as free delivery of vaccines to under-served groups independently of legal or insurance status. Healthcare professionals play a major role in communicating about vaccination and represent a trustworthy source of information for parents, and should thus be empowered to improve access and delivery to members of the public.

In addition, participants in the conference also suggested the set-up of standardised vaccination cards. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is currently developing a website on vaccination expected to include a vaccination schedule platform that should facilitate comparison of vaccination schedules across countries. The report also mentions that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is working on the optimisation of schedules to facilitate vaccine development and reduce the number of clinical trials involving children.

The full report is available here.

EDCTP focuses on clinical trials of new or improved drugs, vaccines, microbicides and diagnostics for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Since its creation in 2003 as a European response to the global health crisis caused by these three main poverty-related diseases, Vaccines Europe member companies have been highly involved in EDCTP’s initiatives.

In this regard, the MoU has the potential to open the way for closer links between European vaccine companies and scientists in sub-Saharan Africa. Pharmaceutical firms are expected to benefit from working with scientists from diverse backgrounds which could help the development of new or improved medicines and vaccines.

The initiative is part of the EDCTP’s capacity-building efforts and is designed to equip clinical researchers from sub-Saharan Africa with specific skills related to the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials and to further promote research capacity for conducting clinical trials in Africa in accordance with the highest international standards. The fellowships will offer training opportunities in clinical research beyond what could be gained from academic study or employment in Africa, according to the MoU.

Richard Bergström, the Director General of EFPIA said: “This is a great opportunity for all parties involved. EFPIA’s members will benefit from interaction with African scientists from diverse backgrounds beneficial to the development of new or improved treatments in poverty-related diseases. We hope to help them acquire skills relevant to achieving their research and professional goals”.

Charles Mgone, EDCTP Executive Director, said the fellowships would give African experts hands-on experience not taught in universities in Africa – or in Europe. “Conducting clinical trials to the highest international standard in sub-Saharan Africa can be difficult. There is a lack of expertise and manpower, and the environment can be challenging in terms of ethics and regulatory review,” Dr Mgone said.

Scientists taking part in the fellowship scheme will be able to return to their home institutions in Africa and apply new knowhow. Conscious of the need to keep talent in Africa, host companies in Europe will agree not to hire participating research fellows for two years after their placement.

In addition to the proposed fellowship scheme, EDCTP and EFPIA said they recognise the need and demand for opportunities to send or second European researchers from pharmaceutical companies to train for brief periods with African researchers in African research institutions and other relevant settings.