The East and Southern African (ESA) Countries on Wednesday concluded the annual EPI Managers Meeting held in Asmara, Eritrea from 18-20 March 2019, with participants agreeing on 20 recommendations aimed at reaching more children with lifesaving vaccines consequently accelerating implementation of the Addis Declaration on Immunization to attain the Universal Health Coverage. 

The recommendations completed three days of presentations from immunization experts drawn from 20 East and Southern African countries, WHO, UNICEF and other partners. Participants engaged in robust discussions and general debate on immunization achievements, best practices and challenges in the sub region in 2018 and crafted possible ways forward for 2019.

Speaking on behalf of Eritrea’s health minister at the closing ceremony of the meeting, acting director general for public health Dr Andebrhan Tesfatsion called on participants to implement the recommendations agreed upon during the meeting to improve immunization coverage in the sub-region. He added that the confirmation of good performance by Rwanda and Eritrea should be perceived by all countries as good practice of government ownership and leadership. He reiterated the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti’s call to all countries to attain their targets with improved leadership and ownership of the program.

“When all of us go back to our respective areas, we should be able to digest and implement the recommendations within the respective country context,” Dr Tesfatsion said to the participants.

Speaking at the same occasion, UNICEF regional advisor for Health Dr Gabriele Fontana called on participants to make efforts to maintain immunization at the core of primary health care within the ministries to reach Universal Health Care.

“The EPI programme can be at the forefront of the Primary Health Care to reach Universal Health Care with strong focus on reaching vulnerable groups. That takes vision and commitment to do things differently, it might be challenging to measure but I am confident that together we can make it happen,” Dr Fontana said.

He affirmed UNICEF’s commitment to support countries in collaboration with WHO and partners to increase equitable immunization coverage in all countries. He congratulated countries for remarkable gains in immunization in the sub region in 2018 and called on the participants to redouble efforts to ensure no children remain unimmunized.

“We need to communicate clearly with our management on what the programme needs and what it can do to strengthen the health system as a whole. We need to look further, we need to aim higher to strengthen immunization system in our countries,” he added.

WHO representative to Eritrea, Dr Josephine Namboze assured participants of WHO’s continued support to the immunization programme and called on countries to document best practices and lessons learnt in immunization initiatives and share widely for cross fertilization. She echoed that EPI is significant in attaining UHC and its initiatives could help improve other health programmes in the countries.

“EPI should be appreciated as part of the overall UHC, it is not a standalone programme, EPI just like other programmes needs to fit into everything that is happening within the health sector as part of the essential health care package,” Dr Namboze said.

Participants agreed to 20 recommendations for implementation by member states and six for partners to support implementation of critical areas of the recommendations. Among others, countries were requested to document the implementation of the Addis Declaration on Immunization roadmap for presentation to the meeting of heads of states in June 2019. In response to the measles outbreaks affecting the region and the low uptake of Measles vaccine second dose, countries were requested to conduct assessments to identify bottlenecks to measles containing vaccine second dose (MCV2) uptake and implement appropriate interventions. They also agreed to use existing tools to identify existing gaps in the vaccine preventable diseases programme and develop implementation strategies to address them. Recommendations were also crafted to address the challenges of vaccine derived polio viruses in some of the countries, vaccine safety, new vaccine introduction, Maternal and Neo-natal Tetanus, new innovations, integration of interventions, logistics, communication and social mobilization.