Abstract
The Vaccine Vigilance Working Group (VVWG) was created in 2004 as part of the National Immunization Strategy to strengthen vaccine safety in Canada. The Group has representation from all federal/provincial/territorial immunization programs across the country, as well as Health Canada regulators and the Immunization Monitoring Program ACTive (IMPACT) network. VVWG works to harmonize vaccine safety monitoring and adverse event reporting and management across Canada by developing and following national guidelines and seeking out best pharmacovigilance practices, including training. It also provides a national vaccine safety sentinel network that uses several mechanisms to rapidly share information on emerging safety issues to enable effective public health response. The "vigilance" in VVWG emphasizes the watchful, ever alert nature and activities of the Group's work. Increased public and health professional awareness of the VVWG's role and activities should help to allay concerns about vaccine safety that lead to vaccine hesitancy and in turn limit the effectiveness of immunization.
Highlights
Vaccine safety monitoring, from local to provincial/territorial and the national level, has always been part of Canada’s commitment to immunization This was evident in 1999 when a multi-year collaborative federal/provincial/territorial (F/P/T) initiative known as the National Immunization Strategy (NIS) was initiated to strengthen immunization in Canada [1]
Increased public and health professional awareness of the Vaccine Vigilance Working Group (VVWG)’s role and activities should help to allay concerns about vaccine safety that lead to vaccine hesitancy and in turn limit the effectiveness of immunization
The 2003 NIS report described some key gaps/limitations in the safety system that included: a lack of national guidelines for reporting, verification, management and information sharing of adverse events following immunization (AEFIs); a need for more timely national adverse event following immunization (AEFI) data; and a stronger capacity to respond to urgent vaccine safety issues
Summary
From local to provincial/territorial and the national level, has always been part of Canada’s commitment to immunization This was evident in 1999 when a multi-year collaborative federal/provincial/territorial (F/P/T) initiative known as the National Immunization Strategy (NIS) was initiated to strengthen immunization in Canada [1]. The 2003 NIS report described some key gaps/limitations in the safety system that included: a lack of national guidelines for reporting, verification, management and information sharing of adverse events following immunization (AEFIs); a need for more timely national AEFI data; and a stronger capacity to respond to urgent vaccine safety issues. Multiple roles were envisioned for the network including: AEFI surveillance and reporting; identification and addressing of potential vaccine safety issues; communication; and capacity to respond in a coordinated fashion given urgent national situations. Such a network was created in 2004—the Vaccine Vigilance Working Group (VVWG). The purpose of this paper is to describe the VVWG structure, process and output, and show how it “keeps watch” on vaccine safety across Canada
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