Context The COVID-19 pandemic put a heavy strain on many public health systems, which had to deal with high numbers of severely ill people and deaths and with challenges regarding vaccination and medical supplies. The Balkan region was seriously affected by the pandemic, highlighting the importance of strengthening preparedness and…
Context In recent years, there have been efforts to upscale HIV treatment and prevention in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including conducting studies among men who have sex with men (MSM). One commonly used method to recruit participants for these studies has been respondent-driven sampling. However, this…
Short Description COVID-19 strongly affects the living conditions of people, showing the value of reliable and timely information. The burden of disease (BoD) methodology is a suitable instrument to monitor the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on population health, but while illness and death impose a considerable impact, the disease…
Short Description National Immunisation Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are multidisciplinary panels of national experts providing independent and evidence-based guidance to Ministries of Health on immunisation policies and vaccine use in the population. The main task of the NITAGs is to gather, review, evaluate and structure evidence on specific vaccination topics…
What is the structure of the project, how do people work together? The project is co-coordinated by Professor Milena Santric Milicevic in Belgrade, Serbia and Professor Kairat Davletov in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Together with the RKI team, they and their staff form the steering group. At the beginning of the project,…
National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) are advisory bodies that develop recommendations for policy maker to support them in taking country-owned, evidence-based, and sustainable decisions on immunization policies. Long-standing NITAGs such as the German NITAG “STIKO”, the UK “Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation” (JCVI) or the US “Advisory Committee…
During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) face various challenges: NITAGs normally develop recommendations based on a broad body of evidence. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence needed to develop recommendations e.g. on risk factors for severe and fatal courses or effects of COVID-19 variants on…