The regional workshop for planning for national access, allocation, and deployment of influenza pandemic medical countermeasures held in Thailand

Overview

Ensuring effective and efficient deployment of pandemic medical counter measures during influenza pandemics is critical to tackle morbidity and mortality. Taking this into consideration, under the auspices of the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework, WHO and partners are supporting the development and periodic review of global and national plans for pandemic medical counter measures deployment.

Many lessons have been learned with regard to medical counter measure deployment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Capitalising on these lessons related to response efforts, it is optimal to engage with countries now in the recovery period of the COVID-19 pandemic. One area for that engagement is adapting and developing national medical counter measure deployment plans for future respiratory viruses of pandemic potential. To this end WHO conducted a regional workshop in Bangkok, Thailand during 26-30 June 2023.

Participants of the regional meeting included national focal points for

(a) pandemic preparedness,

(b) pandemic vaccinations

(c) logistics and medical counter measures operations

(d) authorities from national medicines regulatory agencies and

(e) risk communication and community engagement (RCCE).

They were from Thailand, Bhutan, and Timor-Leste. WHO country office representatives from India and Nepal also participated.

The workshop included a tabletop/simulation/gaming exercise, educational presentations and groupwork activities. These methods enabled participants to identify areas for improvement in national vaccine deployment planning and tools to enable the revision or development of new deployment and vaccination plans for pandemic influenza.

The meeting helped participants to enhance their understanding of the importance of medical countermeasures deployment, identify areas for improving drafts of their national medical countermeasures deployment action plans and familiarize with available WHO tools supporting development of plans for medical countermeasures deployment, At the end of the meeting participating countries articulated next steps and discussed how WHO could support their efforts technically. Participants provided feedback for the workshop requesting to include exercises on antivirals as a pharmaceutical response measure and add budgeting and costing modules in future iterations.