EYE Newsletter November 2020

Wednesday, 02 December 2020

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Date: 2 December 2020

Completion of nationwide yellow fever PMVCs in Ghana

From 12th to 18th November, Ghana implemented the final phase of its nationwide PMVCs and protected over 5.4 million people aged 10 to 60 years, from yellow fever (YF). This is a major milestone for the EYE strategy and Ghana, as it represents attainment of nationwide protection from YF. Exceptional support was received from the US CDC Foundation for the printing of 6.2 million vaccination cards and provision of 87,841 bottles of hand sanitizers (250ml each) covering the entire campaign.

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Fourth EYE strategy annual partners’ meeting :
A global community working to control yellow fever risk

Over 215 EYE stakeholders from 44 countries and 4 continents participated in the annual meeting. Following last year’s annual meeting in Brasilia, Brazil, hosted by PAHO, this year's virtual meeting was a unique and rich opportunity to review our EYE Strategy achievements and adaptations in the COVID-19 context. It was a fruitful two-day meeting discussing our progress on the strategy to date; regional and country updates, and lessons learned from recent YF outbreaks, amongst many other topics.

If you missed the meeting, recordings of both days can be viewed on the EYE strategy’s YouTube channel. All presentations are accessible on the event’s Dropbox repository and you can also use the WHO Events app to access all event documents and contact fellow participants. The app is accessible on the Web, iOS, and android through EVENT CODE: EYE2020.

We will be planning some roundtable discussions, for more detailed planning on some of the topics discussed during the meeting and will keep you posted on dates in 2021.

Guidance to support immunization in the COVID-19 context

To enable the continuation of essential services, such as YF prevention and control activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO and partners are developing and publishing country and technical guidance documents. Most of the published documents are available through the WHO publications hub.

Highlights of documents published, updated or translated in November include:

Immunization as an essential health service: guiding principles for immunization activities during the COVID-19 pandemic and other times of severe disruption: This document is endorsed by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, and provides guiding principles to support countries in their decision-making regarding provision or resumption of immunization services, during severe disruptive events such as COVID-19, natural disasters or humanitarian emergencies. It incorporates the Immunization Agenda 2030 principles of being people-centred, country-owned, partnership-based and data-guided.