POST 00649E : VACCINE FORECAST 12 March 2004
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Alasdair Wylie (mailto:[log in to unmask]) comments on new
policies regarding the vaccine forecast formula as indicated in the last
GAVI Update (Feb. 2004).
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The following extract from the new GAVI Update caught my attention:
"From Dr Olivier Ronveaux, WHO/HQ: New Policies : The GAVI Board has
recently approved
a revision to the vaccine forecast formula, based on DTP1, and not on DTP3
anymore; for the next exercise, the forecast will be calculated as followed:
DTP1 = DTP3 x factor of DTP1-DTP3 drop-out (most recent report by country)."
This is confusing and seems unhelpful, unless some other information is
needed to make it clearer.
Published GAVI guidelines for vaccine requirement calculations - for
example in the form for application for country support - have always
rightly used the basic WHO method of expected number of infants (target
population) and number of doses as the starting point for this calculation
for each antigen.
If, as is indicated above, some countries have been given new vaccine
funding with DPT3 as a calculation base (albeit difficult to believe) one
would expect them to have run out of vaccine, unless dropout was so low
that the reserve stock covered the deficiency. How many did?
If a recent DTP1 figure is needed as a base for calculation it is available
directly from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Reporting Form and there would seem to
be no need to use a drop out factor to adjust a DPT3 figure.
However the disadvantage of using a DPT1 figure is that it would tend to
institutionalise "left outs" - the infants born who do not start the
immunization series. Vaccine supply calculated on this basis would
therefore tend to discourage efforts to identify and immunize "left outs".
Is it not better therefore to use the standard formula?
Clarification from WHO/HQ would be useful, as might a discussion at the
Technet meeting.
Regards
Alasdair Wylie
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