Policies and SOPs for vaccine management

This page contains a repository of national immunization policies and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and job-aids for staff at vaccine stores and health facilities. Documents in the repository can be used by countries as reference material when creating or updating their own immunization guidance. The repository is aligned with the Effective Vaccine Management (EVM) C5 'Policies and procedures' requirement category and is organised into the following sections:

• National policies
• SOPs for healthcare workers
• Job-aids for healthcare workers 
• Guidance on creating and maintaining policies & SOPs

For a full list of immunization supply chain guidance and tools produced by WHO, refer to the Guidance and tools page of the WHO website. For information on the EVM requirements for C5 ‘Policies and procedures’, refer to the Setting the standard page of the EVM website.

Policies

Policies are formal documents stating national immunization requirements (policies, guidelines, strategies, etc.), often described as the what and why. The following table provides a list of national immunization policy documents.

SOPs for healthcare workers

SOPs provide guidance on performing an action or task, often described as the how and when. The following table provides a list of SOPs for staff at vaccine stores and health facilities.

Job-aids

Job-aids are a type of SOP that provides practical guidance on how to perform a specific task, for example a checklist, flowchart, reference sheet, etc. The following table provides a list of job-aids for staff at vaccine stores and health facilities.

Guidance on creating and maintaining policies & SOPs

The following resources can be used when writing new national immunization policies and facility-level SOPs.