Page: Vaccination

In the first of six regions we dissect, event 6 focuses on the regional needs and drivers for transforming vaccination in the Americas. This involves identifying priorities in the region’s countries with regards equity and access to vaccinations. We also discuss barriers and challenges and regional needs in relation to policy setting. FIP members, stakeholders and partners from the Americas region, join us for a true regional perspective.

The World Health Organization has listed vaccine hesitancy — concerns related to vaccination or outright refusal to receive vaccines despite availability — as one of the top 10 threats to global health in 2019. This threat is evidenced by recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in many high-income countries and the sheer volume of disinformation circulating regarding the recently approved vaccines against COVID-19.

This event focused on the issues around health literacy and access to information. The societal influences on the ‘’infodemic’’ will be laid out, also the role of health care professionals, health workers and be vaccine hesitant people. We considered all the policy elements that need to be addressed to overcome this, identifying tools to overcome these issues from a range of angles and the role pharmacy can play.

The Leadership Summit– the programme finale – is a high-level event in which we recap the primary outcomes of the 12-event digital series. Together, we will adopt the FIP Commitment to Action on sustainable and equitable access to vaccines through pharmacy which will be launched during the Summit. Global leaders from health and pharmacy join this landmark event.

El documento técnico, Servicios farmacéuticos en inmunización: Aportes, experiencias e implementación en la región de las Américas, elaborado por el Centro de Información de Medicamentos del Instituto de Investigaciones Farmacéuticas de la Facultad de Farmacia de la Universidad de Costa Rica para el Foro Farmacéutico de las Américas (FFA), ofrece una visión general de la participación del profesional en farmacia en temas de vacunas y en servicios farmacéuticos en inmunización en América Latina. En este webinar de presentación, se hará una reseña de sus contenidos y la relación con los objetivos de desarrollo de la Federación Internacional Farmacéutica (FIP). Este documento tiene la pretensión de constituirse en una herramienta para la implementación de servicios farmacéuticos en inmunización en la región que complementa las formuladas y emitidas por la FIP.

Vaccination coverage rates for several diseases are suboptimal and remain below WHO targets in many countries of all income levels. For FIP, it is essential to engage with civil society organisations representing different constituencies – from patient advocacy groups to older adult organisations and to vaccination advocates – to discuss and outline synergistic and complementary advocacy actions for broader access and convenience of vaccination services through a diversity of providers and pathways. This event gathered different civil society organisations to express their concerns, best practices and expectations, namely with regards to the role of pharmacists, for improving vaccination coverage, and to identify potential alignments in advocacy strategies.

This digital event discussed how important it is to promote confidence in influenza vaccines and avoid complacency towards vaccination due to lower influenza rates in the past year. Harnessing the convenience of access to pharmacies will be paramount to achieve these goals. Due to the widespread adoption of disease prevention measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19, the prevalence of the seasonal influenza lowered drastically around the world. However, as more people become vaccinated against COVID-19 and measures such as mask wearing, social distancing and home-based working or schooling are eased, the flu could return with high incidence rates and people could be more susceptible to the influenza virus due to lack of recent exposure. Developing flu vaccines this year has also been more challenging than usual due to less data available. This uncertainty around the return of influenza makes vaccination all the more critical, and it essential to communicate this to the population.

This event focused on intra and interprofessional alliances to ensure that we can work together to deliver the areas of policy addressed in this series. Panellists discussed working together with other agencies and policymakers to establish sustainable policies on vaccines access and equity, including how pharmacy can be a force of good in supporting vaccinations for all health workers.