The Fourth Regional workshop to review progress towards Measles-Rubella and other Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD) surveillance and outbreak preparedness and response in WHO South-East Asia Region was held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from 13 to 16 June 2022.The workshop was attended by national managers, officers of the national immunization programmes, surveillance officers and data focal points from health ministries of nine member states together with WHO focal points in the respective countries. The general objective of the meeting was to strengthen Member States’ capacity to conduct high-quality surveillance for Measles, Rubella, and other priority VPDs for accelerated efforts towards elimination/control of all priority VPDs.
The WHO Representative to Bangladesh, Dr Bardan Jung Rana welcomed all participants and delivered the message of the Regional Director, WHO SEAR. The Additional Secretary, World Health, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of Bangladesh presided over the inaugural session on 13 June 2022 and welcomed all the participants to Bangladesh. The Director of Maternal Neonatal Child and Adolescent Health, Directorate General of Health Services gave opening and closing remarks on behalf of the Government of Bangladesh. The Technical Officer-Measles, WHO-SEARO coordinated the event. He concluded the workshop on 16 June 2022 with a vote of thanks.
Photo credit: Faysal Ahmed
From WHO Bangladesh, the team leader of the Immunization and Vaccine Development (IVD) team, Medical Officer-Immunization Systems Strengthening, National Professional Officer (NPO)-Surveillance, 7 Divisional Coordinators (DC), the senior-most Surveillance and Immunization Medical Officer (SIMO) and the Data and Information Systems Associate represented the technical team. The administrative and secretarial support at the workshop was undertaken by NPO-Operations, Executive Assistant-Programme, Executive Assistant-Data, and Team Assistant, ICT.
Photo credit: Faysal Ahmed
The National Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) of Bangladesh was represented by the Director, MNC&AH, Deputy Director EPI and Surveillance, Programme Manager-EPI, and Deputy Programme Manager-EPI. The participants developed draft country-specific action plans for the next two years based on the deliberations and feedback of peer review and group work conducted during the 4-day long meeting. They also identified the need for technical and financial support from WHO and partners to implement those action plans. The participants also had an opportunity to visit three vaccination sites within Dhaka to get a feel of the city and to observe various aspects of the routine immunization programme.
With the active participation of stakeholders, the 4-day long meeting was a fruitful one with hopes for a better future in the South East Asia Region's Measles-Rubella and other priority VPD surveillance and outbreak preparedness and response. For more information on the issues covered in this web story, please contact ssultana@who.int
Photo credit: Faysal Ahmed