The objectives of the Board are to increase the awareness of viral hepatitis as a major health hazard, both in occupational setting and as a community health risk, and to consider, recommend and encourage actions to improve the prevention and the control of viral hepatitis. The Board develops mainly vaccination recommendations to control and eliminate viral hepatitis. The Board encourages HBV control by pressing for improved prevention policies at national and regional levels. It strongly supports the recommendations of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and of the World Health Assembly, which urge all countries to integrate hepatitis B vaccination into their national immunisation programmes by 1997.
Target audiences of the VHPB include health care professionals, policy makers and opinion leaders reached through appropriate channels of communication.
The instruments the VHPB handles are meetings (consensus meetings, workshops, training seminars, congress,...) and publications (Viral Hepatitis, ad hoc publications, scientific papers, general media, website,....).
The VHPB has a strong and reliable network, including the links with WHO and CDC and a scientific independence and credibility, built up in the past and to be extended in the future.
The topics for the future to be discussed at VHPB meeting:
- Sustaining vaccination programmes
- Monitoring currently implemented programmes
- Issues of safety of vaccines, behaviour and attitudes
- Impact of mutants on epidemiology and prevention
- Combination vaccines
- New vaccines
The VHPB tends to be renewing and wishes to handle a new approach as well as on short term, middle term as on long term:
Short term
A. Investment in the management:
Consolidation of the achievements to date of the VHPB by investing in the scientific capacity of the secretariat. An increased capacity is required in the following scientific topics:
- To work out and elaborate into depth some important and urgent issues like safety of vaccines, combination vaccines, mutants.
- To focus on behavioural issues/how to deal with crisis situations that could undermine the achievements of vaccination programmes
- To review health economics (burden of disease, cost-benefit, competition, ...) and evaluation of vaccination programmes
- To assist implementation of national plans of action for the introduction of vaccines
- To identify additional funding opportunities
- To elaborate quality control of VHPB recommendations.
- To update and validate VHPB output and communication
- To consider new ways of collaboration with sponsoring organisations: as a collaborative group to assist EU, NGO's, etc.
B. Invest in the continuous communication between the VHPB members, the sponsors and the secretariat, in order to establish a more efficient co-operation between all parties. The VHPB-secretariat redesigns the website to a more efficient communication tool to improve the existing deliverables.
Medium term
- Enlargement of the subject and scope of the VHPB:
- To evaluate the introduction of combination vaccines / new vaccines and its repercussions on vaccination programmes.
- Geographical scope of activities: how far and under which conditions can the VHPB expand its activities? Planning of a meeting in 2001 focusing on the epidemiology and control of hepatitis B in Eastern and Central Europe and the Newly Independent States.
- Consolidation of existing activities in Western Europe.
- Launch of new activities in Western Europe.
- Re-launch of activities in Eastern Europe
- To focus further on behavioural- and safety issues and on health economics.
- To improve communication through question- and answer-documents
Long term
- To capitalise on current experience, output and activities
- To define our position in the field of prevention and to assist in controlling vaccine-preventable diseases, preferentially in collaboration with WHO, CDC (Centres for Disease Control), CVP (Bill and Melinda Gates Children's Vaccine Program), EU and NGO's (Non Governmental Organisations).
- To further focus on repercussions of the introduction of combination vaccines (including hepatitis B antigen) on vaccination programmes
- To focus on global vaccination policies in general
- To recommend minimum criteria for vaccination schedules
