Advisory Committee concludes that new meningitis vaccine is safe
22 July 2011 - Following review of new data for the meningococcal A conjugate vaccine, MenAfriVac, WHO's Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety concluded that the experience from the first three countries to introduce this vaccine did not indicate any reasons for concern about the vaccine’s safety. The data reviewed by the Advisory Committee ― at its meeting of 15-16 June 2011 ― were collected in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger during the September and December 2010 vaccination campaigns and from the surveillance systems.
Although the Committee recognized that it would not be practical to conduct active surveillance on a widespread basis during future immunization activities, it highlighted the need for continuous surveillance as the vaccine is rolled out to ensure that further data on the safety profile of the vaccine can be obtained.
Other issues discussed by the Committee included a new approach for classifying serious adverse events following immunization, information sheets describing the safety profile of important vaccines and the development of a global strategy to enhance vaccine safety capacity in low- and middle-income countries.