EYE Newsletter July 2020

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Date: 28 July 2020
 
Updates on the 2020 Yellow Fever PMVCs in Africa
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will implement its Preventive Mass Vaccination Campaigns (PMVCs) aiming at protecting 17.9 million persons in 2 phases scheduled for December 7 and 14, respectively. Active coordination and planning are underway and micro-planning training has started.

Nigeria plans to implement its postponed campaign in Anambra State as well as its accelerated 2020 PMVCs between Q3 2020 and Q1 2021. Over 36 million persons will be protected from yellow fever (YF) upon completion of these campaigns. The postponed Anambra campaign, together with a campaign in Oyo State are scheduled for September and will be dual antigen campaigns with MeningitisA for eligible age cohorts. This will be followed by YF campaigns in Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Delta, Ondo, and Osun States.

Ghana plans to implement its postponed PMVC in October, with specific implementation dates to be defined. This campaign will protect an additional 5.6 million persons and mark completion of nationwide protection.
 
Prioritization of YF Surveillance in COVID-19 Era
Profiling the Successes of the DRC and Nigeria
Many public health activities have been stressed as countries are faced with competing priorities and responding to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. COVID-19 remains a pressing public health priority, however Eliminate Yellow Fever Epidemics (EYE) priority countries are working to also maintain surveillance and response to other high-threat epidemic prone diseases such as YF. DRC and Nigeria provide two examples of countries maintaining commitment to rapid detection of any YF cases or outbreaks though syndromic surveillance in the COVID-19 context.

In the DRC, 371 suspect YF cases have been reported through epi-week 27 through syndromic surveillance. This compares favourably with the same period in 2019, when 412 cases were reported.

In Nigeria there has been ongoing reporting and testing of suspect cases of YF. While overall reporting is lower than this time in 2019, regular updates are received from surveillance and laboratory testing. Through regular updates from the north eastern States using the Early Warning, Alert and Response Network (EWARN) system, 11 suspect YF cases have been reported from Borno State alone. The national laboratory system has also detected 16 positive or indeterminate results on serology and continues to ship samples to the regional reference laboratory (RRL) for confirmatory testing. 

The ongoing commitment to rapid detection of YF by these countries is highly recognized given the challenging context.
Launch of Centre Pasteur du Cameroun’s activities as Regional Reference Laboratory
Centre Pasteur du Cameroun (CPC) launched its activities as the third African YF RRL on 1 July, starting with external quality assessment (EQA) activities. This marks a great achievement on the laboratory front and provides an extension of laboratory capacity in the region. Ten African countries/national laboratories are expected to ship 10% of their negative YF samples to CPC for quality control, while other countries will do same through their respective RRLs.
 
Update on Gavi YF Diagnostics Procurement Support
Out of the 20 African countries at high risk for YF epidemics that received official notification of their approval for Gavi YF diagnostic procurement support, 19 have placed their first orders through UNICEF Supply Division for diagnostic bundles. These countries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Senegal, South Sudan, Togo and Uganda. The remaining country (Sudan) will soon place orders.
 
Strategies to Understand and Mitigate COVID-19 Impact
A second pulse survey on the status of immunization services during COVID-19 in May was conducted from 5-20 June with respondents from 82 countries or territories. A preliminary analysis of data from the survey highlighted disruptions to outreach and fixed post vaccination activities but with some improvements compared with the first pulse survey. Major reasons for the disruptions include low availability of PPE for healthcare workers, travel restrictions and low availability of healthcare workers. Disruptions to demand for vaccination services were also highlighted, stemming from the fear of exposure to COVID-19 during vaccination and the inability to access vaccination services due to lockdowns, limited public transport or physical distancing policies.

To address these challenges, respondents highlighted plans to rebuild acceptance and demand for vaccination. The majority of those plans will contain awareness building, community engagement, and social mobilization activities.

Details on the preliminary quantitative analysis are available here.
 
Guidance to Support Immunization in the COVID-19 Context
To enable continuation of essential services such as YF immunization and control activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO and partners are developing and publishing country and technical guidance documents. Most of the published documents are available through the WHO publications hub.

The resource below was updated in July:

Emergency Global Supply Chain System (COVID-19) catalogue lists all medical devices, including personal protective equipment, medical equipment, medical consumables, single use devices, laboratory and test-related devices that may be requested through the COVID-19 Supply Portal.
 
Upcoming Events
  • Gavi application round 3 submission due date, 8 September
  • Virtual ICG Partners meeting, 23-24 September (2-5pm GVA time)
  • Virtual EYE Annual Meetings
    • 9,10 November, Laboratory Technical Working Group (LTWG)
    • 12 November, Supply and Demand Working Group (SDWG)
    • 19 November, EYE Partners meeting
    • 24 November, Vaccine Delivery Working Group (VDWG)
    • 1 December, Risk Analysis Prioritization Working Group (RAWG)
 

>120 million people

Protected against yellow fever in Africa since EYE inception.
 
We are all partners. We all have a role to play.
 
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