Quarterly Newsletter:

December 2021

Issue #3

Editorial

Remember the last pandemic? After a novel flu virus – H1N1 – spread around the world in 2009/2010, there was a strong appetite to learn lessons. ‘Next time’, we would be better prepared. We are already having the same conversation about COVID-19, even as it continues to disrupt our lives.

One of the key features of the H1N1 experience was the emergence of social media as key communication channels. At the time, companies, institutions, health professionals and others were reluctant to join the conversation. And, in the absence of vaccine advocates, anti-vaccine voices filled the vacuum.

In the period between pandemics that has changed. This time, more vaccine champions were active on more social channels than ever before. Vaccines Today was created in 2011 in response to the need to communicate and to connect with the ‘immunity community’. Today, it’s part of the WHO Vaccine Safety Net network of trustworthy vaccine websites, reaching millions of people annually.

As we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of this initiative, we have been reflecting on the big issues that have dominated the past decade, including pandemics, technological advances, life-course immunisation and misinformation. 

Now we’re turning our attention to the future. What will the next decade bring? 

At our Vaccines Tomorrow webinar in late November, we asked several experts for their views on the future of immunisation. As well as hearing from researchers and advocates, it was a chance to think about the mistakes we’ve made along the way, and what we have learned. 

We now know information alone is rarely enough to change someone’s mind. We know myth-busting is a delicate business that should be handled with care. And we’re beginning to see the value of ‘non-traditional’ sources of vaccine information. 

In short, health professionals are key players in driving vaccine uptake, but opinions are shaped by a complex web of offline and online contacts. This was brought home by one of the speakers at the Vaccines Tomorrow event who noted that people pick up snippets of information from hairdressers and taxi drivers, about as much as they do from senior scientists on the evening news. 

This may be frustrating to some. But, if the last pandemic taught us that complaining about social media was not enough, this one has shown that we need a broad coalition of voices if we are to be heard by everyone everywhere. 

Yes, we need health professionals on board. And civil society too – including organisations representing patients with chronic diseases, active ageing groups, and youth advocates. 

But we also need to ensure that when hyperlocal influencers – shopkeepers, café owners, football coaches – look for information, they find high-quality engaging content. Their views on the value of vaccines will spread in local communities as quickly as any virus. 

All of this leads me to conclude that if Vaccines Today didn’t already exist, we would need to invent it. As we look to the new decade, we must be brave enough to leave our comfort zone.  

Gary Finnegan, Editor of Vaccines Today

Key Figures

Vaccines Europe External Engagement

The effect of COVID-19 on routine vaccination

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop and remains in the focus of public and government attention, its impact on routine immunisation becomes more significant, leading to declining immunisation coverage rates. Sibilia Quilici, Executive Director of Vaccines Europe, engaged in a number of events and activities, raising awareness of this issue and urging policy stakeholders to take immediate actions to mitigate the negative effects that disrupted routine vaccinations would have on public health: 

• "The impact of COVID-19 on routine vaccination” webinar organised by The Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) - watch here 
• “Building resilience: What have we learnt from COVID-19 and how to move forward?” webinar by EU40 – The Network of Young MEPs – watch here 
• “Flu vaccination – Pharmacists in vaccination” podcast by The European Pharmaceutical Students’ Association (EPSA) - watch here or listen here 
• The first Vaccine Forum in Poland by Instytut Ochrony Zdrowia - watch here
• “Eliminating the vaccine-preventable cancers” webinar by GLOBSEC – watch here 
• Annual Clinical Trails Symposium 2021 by AVANTYO (Romania) 
• "Addressing the challenges of concomitant deployment of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination" EU webinar organised by Active Citizen Network

Communications Highlights

Podcast: What is needed from the EMA to be better prepared for future health threats?

Listen to our podcast with Michel Stoffel, Senior Adviser Global Regulatory Affairs, GSK and Isabelle Bekeredjian-Ding, Head of Microbiology Division, Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, where we explore what is needed from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to address future challenges.

Podcast: How can the EU be better prepared for cross-border health threats?

Listen to our podcast with MEP Sara Cerdas and Mariano Votta, Director, Active Citizenship Network, where we explore how the European Union can better protect its population against cross-border health threats.

Vaccines in the fight against AMR

Vaccines are an important tool in the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). They reduce the overuse and misuse of antibiotics for vaccine-preventable infections and for viral diseases like flu that shouldn’t be treated with antimicrobials. For this year’s World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (18-24 Nov) and European Antibiotic Awareness Day (18 Nov), we created a video to highlight that vaccines can help make it possible to stop AMR. The video is part of EFPIA’s Mission Possible campaign and was promoted throughout November.

COVID-19 vaccines production

Look at the Vaccines Europe / EFPIA  infographic “what does it really take to get the world vaccinated against COVID-19?” summarising key data on COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing and complemented by a blogpost by Sibilia Quilici, Executive Director Vaccines Europe and Dr. Koen Berden, Executive Director International Affairs, EFPIA, highlighting that a strong Intellectual Property system is crucial for enabling the development and manufacture of not only COVID-19 vaccines, but all vaccines and medicines.

#TeamVaccines

We launched the #TeamVaccines campaign earlier in the year, sharing the personal stories of those involved in the development and manufacture of the COVID-19 vaccines and why they would get vaccinated. But as the conversation around the COVID-19 vaccines continues to develop and new issues come into focus, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the wealth of information. Therefore, for Phase 2 of the campaign, we compiled 5 things to know about the COVID-19 vaccines: 

• They’re effective 
• They meet rigorous safety standards 
• They’re safe 
• They help protect you and others 
• They’re not just for the elderly or vulnerable 

Public Private Partnerships

The Innovative Health Initiative, the new European Health partnership

We are happy to announce our partnership with the newly launched Innovative Health Initiative (IHI), previously IMI.
Together with other stakeholders from the public and private sectors, we are looking forward to speeding up research and development, finding quicker solutions to unmet medical needs and positively impacting healthcare systems in Europe.

Vaccines Europe Publication

Vaccines supply shortages: Experts say that multiple causes requires concerted efforts

In a recently published article on "Addressing Vaccine Supply Challenges in Europe: Expert industry perspective and recommendations”,  Vaccines Europe experts identify 6 main root causes of vaccines' shortages and draw attention to the fact that these are beyond the control of vaccine manufacturers and to the measures the manufacturers are undertaking to control their operations and hence to reduce the risk of shortages. 

The article showcases that there is no single solution to address the challenge of vaccine supply in Europe as each of the identified causes is playing a key role. It is essential that all causes of shortages are properly addressed, therefore, finding solutions to address the problem of vaccine shortages will require a concerted effort and dialogue with the involvement of all key stakeholders.

Health Policy Highlights

EU Beating Cancer Plan

On December 9th, the Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA) concluded its work by voting the report drafted by MEP Véronique Trillet-Lenoir, "Strengthening Europe in the fight against cancer”. 

Vaccines Europe welcomes the ambition of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan,  which sets clear targets for (1) HPV vaccination (90% VCR for girls and increasing vaccination for boys by 2030), towards eliminating HPV related cancers, (2) improving access to and uptake of vaccines against Hepatitis B in order to reduce liver cancer, and propose a Council Recommendation on vaccine-preventable cancers with calls for stakeholder collaboration, represents a unique opportunity for the elimination of vaccines preventable cancers in the European Union. 

HERA

The proposal for a European Health Emergency and Preparedness Response Authority (HERA), which was announced on 16 September, is a positive step towards establishing a robust preparedness system to face current and future health emergencies. The importance of this proposal was also acknowledged in the State of the Union speech given by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. 

Since initial plans to establish HERA were first outlined, we have been calling for the new authority to be given sufficient capabilities to respond effectively to major health crises, strong partnership with industry, and fit for purpose instruments. 

Jointly with EFPIA, Vaccines Europe has put together recommendations on how to achieve this, which you can find in our position paper and White Paper. EFPIA and Vaccines Europe, their national associations and member companies, look forward to working with all stakeholders towards the shared goal of a safer, healthier and more resilient Europe. 

EU preparedness should know no borders: Regulation on cross-border threats to health

Since November, the interinstitutional negotiations for a Regulation on serious cross-border threats to health (CBHT) are taking place. The objective is to develop a stronger and more comprehensive legal framework for EU preparedness, risk-assessment and response in case of health threats. 

Concretely, the regulation proposes an early warning and response system, that can identify and respond adequately to threats through better EU coordination. Also, joint procurement of medicines in case of crisis is foreseen. While improved and tailored surveillance standards for vaccine preventable diseases will allow better and faster allocation of vaccines in clearly identified territories, the file does not include a clearly defined scope of conditions under which joint procurement should be put in place. 

Vaccines Europe looks forward to a provisional agreement, we expect the proposal to clearly assign responsibilities and procedures to all involved stakeholders.

Looking back at EU-JAV – and looking forward to next steps

Over the course of its work, the European Joint Action on Vaccination (EU-JAV) has gathered a lot of new insights and produced excellent policy-relevant research on some of the most important opportunities and challenges facing us in the fight against vaccine-preventable diseases today.

During the “Info Day” in October 2021, EU-JAV shared its main findings and outputs: guidelines on increasing vaccination coverage, its annual lists of research priorities on vaccination, and a report on financial mechanisms for vaccine procurement.

EU-JAV’s work will continue for three more months, seeking to create a “Vaccine Network” platform to efficiently disseminate and implement the outcomes of this project.

Vaccines Europe and its members look forward to contributing to this network, which we will be an essential forum for multi-stakeholder collaboration, and fundamental for ensuring the successful implementation of EU-JAV’s outputs.

A life course vaccination policy was instrumental to Portugal’s COVID-19 vaccination success

By October 9th, Portugal was the first country in the world to reach 85% vaccination coverage  in the population over 12, with COVID-19 full schedule vaccination.

At that time, many wondered how Portugal managed this, not least because this coverage rate  included adolescents, a group that is always more resistant to receiving medical care.

It’s important to mention the multiple critical factors for this achievement:

- One of the main drivers is the long track record of  disease and vaccination awareness campaigns by health authorities as well as the pharmaceutical industry.  The result was an enabled and sensitized  population who understood the need to prevent serious diseases through the national immunization plan for both children and adults, and a very high uptake (e.g., pneumococcal vaccination in newborns above 95%).

- Another reason is the partnership on COVID-19 prevention, involving  government,  health care professionals’ associations, and  pharma companies. This led to consistent and responsible messages, that fed into the media, and made it possible to allay concerns of more vaccine-sceptic people.

- Finally, it was also decisive that the government handed over the task force's logistical planning to the military force. This was led by a navy Admiral and resulted in extremely efficient organization. Of note, was the creation of large vaccination centers capable of immunizing thousands of people a day, and the use of technological tools, such as digital apps, which meant people could easily schedule timely and convenient appointments.

One last thought: The importance of continuing to vaccinate against COVID-19 to reduce the impact of the disease is underlined by the difference in the number of hospitalized people in Portugal (including ICU), which is about 5 times smaller this year compared to last year.

What We Are Reading & Watching

The value of paediatric vaccination in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: a webinar by ThinkYoung and MSD.

European Cancer Summit 2021: an event by the European Cancer Organisation.

Public stakeholder meeting on COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics in the EU by the European Medicines Agency

WTO-IMF COVID-19 Vaccine Trade Tracker