In 2011 the WHO and a group of partners developed a strategic document on vaccine safety called the Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint (GVSB) published February 22, 2012. The Blueprint proposes a strategic plan for strengthening vaccine safety activities globally. It focuses on building national capacity for vaccine safety in the world’s poorest countries through the coordinated efforts of major stakeholders. [1, 4]
Three months after the GVS Blueprint was published 94 Member States at the 65th World Health Assembly endorsed the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) serving as a framework to guide immunization efforts through to the end of 2020.
The Global Vaccine Safety Initiative (GVSI) was set up to implement the Blueprint strategy and to provide WHO and partners with a framework for enhancing vaccine pharmacovigilance, that is to better detect, report, and analyse adverse events.
The eight strategic objectives (1-4 pharmacovigilance, 5-8 regulatory system)
- Adverse Event Following Immunisation (AEFI) detection
- Investigation of safety signals
- Vaccine safety communication
- Tools and methods
- Regulatory framework
- Technical support and trainings
- Global Analysis and response
- Public-private information exchange
How it works: A Global Vaccine Safety Initiative (GVSI) meeting is a general meeting which guides the GVSI, who is the implementation mechanism for the Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint. [2, 3]
As of 2021 the GVS Blueprint is under review, which began December 2018 and again June 2019, in line with deploying the new plan, Immunization Agenda 2030 at the 73rd World Health Assembly in May 2020. No longer will vaccines be focused be on the ” the world’s poorest countries” they intend to “leave no one behind”.
In the 2019 report a “emerging vaccine safety themes” concluded one was “vaccine hesitancy and misinformation” [pg26]