Consensus building and vaccine confidence: PROTECT’s contribution to the IMPRINT network meeting
On 11 – 12 September, members of the IMPRINT network gathered in Muldersdrift, South Africa. IMPRINT is a global network of maternal and neonatal immunisation experts committed to improving maternal and newborn health. The PROTECT network shares these goals, and several PROTECT researchers are part of the IMPRINT network. They joined the community in sharing the milestones in the recent maternal and neonatal vaccines research.
Members of the PROTECT consortium at the IMPRINT network meeting.
The consortium was strongly represented from the start, with the PROTECT scientific lead Dr Eve Nakabembe and Dr Clare Cutland, PROTECT External Advisory Board member, co-chairing a session on implementation challenges on the first day. Manoella de Novais Pereira from ISGlobal, the PROTECT network coordinator, gave a presentation during that session, summarising findings from a study on antenatal care visit attendance in Mozambique.
Photos by Jacqui Robus, Vividimages Photography.
In addition to the captivating sessions covering the topics of biological sciences, implementation challenges, policy and advocacy, and public engagement, the meeting programme featured a poster session which included three PROTECT-related contributions. Each of them highlighted a different aspect of the network’s varied research, including updates from the pregnancy registries’ development and findings regarding vaccine confidence.
The first poster, presented by Dr Eve Nakabembe (PROTECT scientific lead and a member of the IMPRINT steering group), outlined PROTECT’s objectives, methods, and results so far. It referred to the steps taken to integrate pregnancy registries into health ministries and systems, set up sentinel sites in health facilities, and strengthen their laboratory capacity, as well as gather data on vaccine confidence.
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The work on establishing pregnancy registries was further detailed by the poster presented by Dr Andrew Young, who described the process undertaken to establish consensus on maternal and neonatal outcomes to be used in the pregnancy registries being introduced in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Uganda. The researchers employed a version of the Delphi process, a technique used to achieve consensus among diverse stakeholders. In the case of PROTECT, these included experts in vaccinology, pharmacovigilance, obstetrics, and paediatrics.
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The third poster, presented by Dr Agnes Ssali, summarised the findings of PROTECT’s situational analysis, which explored research on vaccine confidence during pregnancy and the willingness of pregnant women to participate in vaccine trials in sub-Saharan Africa. Importantly, the analysis found no studies on the willingness of pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa to participate in vaccine trials. This is a critical gap that the PROTECT consortium aims to fill through its ongoing research.
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The strong presence of PROTECT partners at the IMPRINT network meeting highlights the common aims both initiatives are pursuing and the importance of collaboration, discussion, and sharing of best practices in maternal vaccine research. The PROTECT consortium is committed to accelerating the maternal vaccine agenda in Africa, with the researchers involved excited to continue sharing the upcoming findings with the wider maternal vaccines community.
