KNOWLEDGE IS THE BEST VACCINE – PROMOTING AND IMPROVING VACCINATION RATES ACROSS THE EU

April, 24, 2018

KNOWLEDGE IS THE BEST VACCINE – PROMOTING AND IMPROVING VACCINATION RATES ACROSS THE EU

Vaccination programmes are a European success story, but they have recently become victims of their own success. Many well-known vaccine-preventable diseases (VDPs) have made a comeback. Measles was on-track to be eradicated by 2020, but Europe observed a 4-fold increase in measles cases in 2017 compared to 2016. This backsliding has many causes, but it is an unacceptable state of affairs. We, the EHP Vaccine committee, urge the European Institutions to:

1) Empower Health Care Professionals (HCPs) to act on vaccines, use pharmacies as additional settings to provide vaccines and curate trustworthy digital information online;

2) Establish an electronic vaccination passport to ensure people know and act in their best interests on vaccinations;

3) Increase dialogue between manufacturers and national health authorities to improve the vaccine forecasting.

Knowledge is the best vaccine