Basic Vaccine Immunology 

LEARNING DISCUSSION 

08 November 2023 

14:10 – 14:30H 

Speaker:

Kim Mulholland 

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia 

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK 

Description:

This will be a discussion of the important role played by Infectious disease surveillance in supporting vaccination programs. Firstly, exploring how monitoring of prevalence, distribution, and trends of vaccine-preventable diseases can help identify geographic areas and populations with high disease burden allowing vaccination strategies to be appropriately targeted. Also considering how well-designed surveillance systems and timely data can help to monitor vaccine effectiveness, alert authorities to characteristics of vaccine failures, and to the emergence of new pathogen strains which may require policy adjustments. Surveillance systems require investment but provide key data to optimize and quantify the value of vaccination programs.