Abstract
National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are defined by the World Health Organization as multidisciplinary groups of health experts who are involved in the development of a national immunization policy. The NITAG has the responsibility to provide independent, evidence-informed advice to the policy makers and national programme managers, on policy issues and questions related to immunization and vaccines.This paper aims to describe the NITAG in Israel. The Israeli NITAG was established by the Ministry of Health in1974. The NITAG’s full formal name is “the Advisory Committee on Infectious Diseases and Immunizations in Israel”. The NITAG is charged with prioritizing choices while granting maximal significance to the national public health considerations. Since 2007, the full minutes of the NITAG’s meetings have been publicly available on the committee’s website (at the Ministry of Health website, in Hebrew).According to the National Health Insurance Law, all residents of Israel are entitled to receive universal health coverage. The health services basket includes routine childhood immunizations, as well as several adult and post - exposure vaccinations. The main challenge currently facing the NITAG is establishing a process for introducing new vaccines and updating the vaccination schedule through the annual update of the national health basket. In the context of the annual update, vaccines have to “compete” with multiple medications and technologies which are presented to the basket committee for inclusion in the national health basket. Over the years, the Israeli NITAG’s recommendations have proved essential for vaccine introduction and scheduling and for communicable diseases control on a national level. The NITAG has established structured and transparent working processes and a decision framework according to WHO standards, which is evidence-based and country-specific to Israel.The recent global COVID-19 pandemic is a major concern for all countries as well as a challenge for NITAGs. Currently, the NITAGs have a key role in advising both on sustainment of the routine immunization programs and on planning of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, with ongoing updates and collaboration with the Ministry of Health and health organizations.
Highlights
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) guiding prerequisites, the National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are defined as multidisciplinary groups of national experts who are involved in the development of a national immunization policy
The Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) criteria for NITAGs functionality include the following: legislative or administrative basis for the advisory group, formal written terms of reference, at least five different areas of expertise represented among core members, at least one meeting per year, circulation of the agenda and background documents at least 1 week prior to meetings and mandatory disclosure of any conflict of interest
According to the WHO-United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Reporting Form in 2019, 170 countries reported on a NITAG with 123 meeting the GVAP functionality criteria [3]
Summary
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) guiding prerequisites, the National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are defined as multidisciplinary groups of national experts who are involved in the development of a national immunization policy. The GVAP criteria for NITAGs functionality include the following: legislative or administrative basis for the advisory group, formal written terms of reference, at least five different areas of expertise represented among core members, at least one meeting per year, circulation of the agenda and background documents at least 1 week prior to meetings and mandatory disclosure of any conflict of interest. In 2017, 98 countries reported on a NITAG which meets the GVAP functionality criteria, to provide guidance and counselling to the national immunization policies. According to the WHO-UNICEF Joint Reporting Form in 2019, 170 countries reported on a NITAG with 123 meeting the GVAP functionality criteria [3]. Tdap vaccine recommendation accepted for women in the third trimester of pregnancy. Recommended for adults in defined high-risk groups, Applied in 2016
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