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STRATEGIC ADVISORY GROUP OF EXPERTS ON MEASLES AND RUBELLA

Saturday, 14th of July 2012

 

• COMMENTS FROM THE SAGE ON MEASLES AND RUBELLA 

From the April 2012 meeting of WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, published in the Weekly Epidemiological Record:

 

Only 2 Regions are on track to achieve measles elimination, the Region of the Americas and the Western Pacific Region, and despite considerable effort, other Regions are unlikely to meet their goals. Complacency and vaccine hesitancy, weak infrastructure and limited resources threatened progress towards elimination, with a funding gap of US$ 32 million for the implementation of supplementary immunization activities in 2012. In addition to campaigns, routine immunization, surveillance, outbreak response and operational research all required strengthening. SAGE reiterated that elimination of measles and rubella was more cost-effective than disease control. SAGE noted that some 60 countries still needed to integrate rubella into routine immunization

and stressed that there was a need to match high quality campaigns with strong routine vaccination systems.

SAGE was concerned about the European situation and the need to identify and target previously unimmunized adult populations. Excellent opportunities for bolstering efforts are provided through the renewed commitment of spearheading partners, the signing of a global measles-

rubella strategic plan, GAVI support for measles rubella vaccination campaigns for under-15 year-olds in 50 countries introducing rubella vaccine, omega replica and a potential GAVI specific allocation to measles activities. The measles-rubella SAGE working group has begun reviewing progress towards 2015 global measles control targets and regional measles and rubella elimination goals, and will provide regular updates to SAGE from November 2012.