Global vaccine safety blueprint
Overview
Vaccines are administered in order to save lives and preserve health. They are among the safest medicinal products and are administered to healthy individuals, including to very young children. However, a small minority of persons who are vaccinated may experience reactions to the vaccine, most of which are mild and time-limited but can also, in rare cases, have significant impact on health. Fear of vaccine reactions, real or perceived, deters many people from undergoing vaccination. The problems of vaccine reaction and reluctance to be vaccinated have been known for many years in industrialized countries and is often raised after most of the benefits from immunization have been obtained with the disappearance of several diseases. As immunization programmes have expanded in LMIC in recent decades, the problems have become more familiar there too. The Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint was drawn up to help protect people globally by providing LMIC with a set of options for ensuring safe use of vaccines, and for deriving maximum benefit from them. The Blueprint proposes strategic goals that will be achieved through a Global Vaccine Safety Initiative. This Initiative is a truly collaborative international effort, hosted by WHO, that focuses on assisting all countries in making sure that vaccines do what they are supposed to do — protect all of us, and especially our children, from sickness and ill-health in the safest possible way.