Kick-off workshop on vaccine readiness in Sub-Saharan Africa

The "Assessing and increasing vaccine readiness in Sub-Saharan Africa" project (VRSA) had its official kick-off workshop at the Robert Koch Institute on 21-22 March 2023. The project is part of the second phase of the Global Health Protection Programme (GHPP) of the German Federal Ministry of Health, which started in January 2023. Present at this two-day meeting were the main project partners, namely the directors of the Guinean expanded programme on immunization (Programme Elargie de Vaccination, PEV), the Guinean national public health institute (Institut National de Santé Publique, INSP), and the African Center of Excellence for the Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases at the Gamal Abdel Nasser University of Conakry (CEA- PCMT), as well as the ZIG 2 project team. In addition to the project partners, members of ZIG Office, ZIG 4, and a visiting scientist from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) joined selected sessions. The main objective was to collaboratively work on a road map for the project, and to provide a platform to network for the project partners. VRSA aims to assess, and accelerate the vaccine-readiness in Guinea.

Project participants from RKI unit ZIG 2 together with colleagues from the partner organisations in Guinea (PEV, INSPC, CEA-PCMT) and a visiting scientist from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) (Source: RKI)

The partners from Guinea provided insights to the state of the Guinean public health system, and the national immunization programme more specifically. During the presentation, the team highlighted the upcoming development of a new national immunization plan as a key challenge for the running year. To inform the process, the partners from RKI and Guinea agreed on integrating a desk review and external evaluation of the PEV into the first phase of the GHPP project. This is in addition to the already planned assessment of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the national immunization programme, and the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine. The results of the desk review, and the protocol for the external evaluation will be presented as part of a workshop to develop the new vaccination strategy in June 2023 in Conakry. During the second day, participants discussed the VRSA project proposal, and refined the goals of subsequent project phases. The workshop closed with a discussion of the time line.

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