COVID-19 InfoVaccines: A WHO-supported educational project to promote COVID-19 vaccination information among professionals and the general population.

COVID-19 vaccine uptake varied across countries, in part due to vaccine hesitancy fueled by a lack of trustworthy information. To help health workers provide evidence-based answers to common questions about COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination, and thereby, assist individuals´ decisions on vaccine acceptance, COVID-19 InfoVaccines, a joint WHO-EU project, was launched in February 2021 to support COVID-19 vaccine rollout in 6 Eastern European countries. COVID-19 InfoVaccines was made available in seven languages and shared on social media networks. A total of 262,592 users accessed COVID-19 InfoVaccines.com between February 11, 2021, and January 31st, 2023. The users were most interested in: general questions; vaccine efficacy and duration of protection; vaccine safety; vaccine co-administration, and dose-interval and interchangeability; though the interest in a specific theme varied in function of the epidemiological situation. A total of 118,510 (45.1%) and 46,644 (17.7%) users scrolled up to 35% and 75% of the COVID-19 InfoVaccines webpage, respectively. The average engagement rate was 71.61%. The users accessed COVID-19 InfoVaccines from 231 countries and territories, but the majority were in Ukraine (N = 38,404; 14.6%), Spain (N = 23,327; 8.9%), and Argentina (N = 21,167; 8.1%). Older Facebook users were more interested in COVID-19 information than younger individuals (X2 p-value < .0001). Two hundred twenty-eight videos were shared on YouTube. The average Click-Through-Rate on Facebook was 7.82%, and that on YouTube was 4.4%, with 60 videos having a Click-Through-Rate >5%, falling in the range of average YouTube video Click-Through-Rate (2% - 10%). As misinformation about vaccines and vaccination spreads easily and can negatively impact health-related decisions, initiatives like COVID-19 InfoVaccines are crucial to facilitate access to reliable information.

Developing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations during the pandemic: The experience of Serbia's Expert Committee on Immunization.

A National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) is a multi-disciplinary body of national experts that provide evidence-based recommendations to policy-makers to assist them in making informed immunization policy and programme decisions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, NITAGs faced many challenges in making evidence-based recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines due to the rapidly evolving situation with new vaccine products available in a short time period and limited data on vaccine effectiveness. The authors reviewed the process used by Serbia's NITAG, which is called the Serbian Expert Committee on Immunization, to develop COVID-19 vaccine recommendations during the pandemic. The article examines the challenges and successes faced by the committee. Serbia's expert committee used the best available evidence to develop over forty recommendations on all aspects of COVID-19 vaccination. These expert committee recommendations facilitated the early procurement and successful roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines, guidance for vaccination of individuals at the highest risk, and high COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country. The availability of five COVID-19 vaccines in Serbia was an advantage for the successful roll-out but posed challenges for the expert committee. Serbia's expert committee plans to use the experience and best practices developed during the pandemic to improve and expand its work moving forward.

Building immunization decision-making capacity within the World Health Organization European Region.

A National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) is a multi-disciplinary body of national experts that provides evidence-based recommendations to policy-makers, assisting them in making sound immunization policy and programme decisions. The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe is working to strengthen the capacity of newly-established NITAGs and has targeted efforts on low- and middle-income countries. The Regional Office, in collaboration with WHO Headquarters and USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), developed a new training strategy and held training workshops to improve NITAGs' functioning and ability to make evidence-based recommendations. Feedback from countries that participated in trainings indicated that the updated training materials and interactive approach with follow-up technical support enabled them to align their NITAG charters and processes with WHO recommendations. To ensure continued progress, global and regional partners such as WHO and CDC should continue providing technical support to recently established NITAGs.