Vaccine/Vaccination Safety in the Americas: Experiences in Surveillance of Events Supposedly Attributable to Vaccination or Immunization (ESAVI), and Interoperability of Data

Abstract

This report presents the background, achievements and challenges of the regional safe vaccination system in the Americas and shows, chronologically, the steps that were taken to create it. The first chapter documents the origin, process and formation of the team, the strategies that were designed to implement the training process in the Region and the formation of the Pan American Advisory Committee on Safe Vaccination (COPAVASE), as a consultative body. The second chapter describes how the Information System was formed, as one of the pillars of the system to support the collection and analysis of data. In this sense, it also describes the implementation process of the DHIS2 tool, which facilitates the interoperability of data on events supposedly attributable to vaccination or immunization. The third chapter documents how the network of sentinel hospitals was implemented for the establishment of the regional surveillance and how work began on passive surveillance. In the process, the way in which the network that carries out surveillance of the ESAVI/EVADIE was formed, its objectives, benefits, the way in which the training workshops were carried out and how the countries of the region to said system. The report was prepared as a preamble to the First Regional Meeting on Safe Vaccination – which was held in Bogotá (Colombia) during 12-14 April 2023, and begins a series of reports that will be published as reference and training material about the safe vaccination system.