NISH joins partners to co-facilitate two training workshops for the EMRO NITAGs

In June 2023 NISH partnered with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Taskforce for Global Health (TFGH) and the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) to support NITAG training for countries in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region. Two separate training workshops were held on either side of the GNN (Global NITAG Network) meeting.

The first workshop (11 – 13 June 2023) trained 27 participants from Djibouti, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Jordan and Somalia. The aim of this training was to build capacity of NITAGs and their secretariats to properly perform their duties. Specific objectives included; to describe the roles and responsibilities of NITAGs and their secretariats, to review and update NITAG Standard operating procedures and terms of reference and to teach some basic concepts of vaccinology. A/Prof Benjamin Kagina presented on immunological concepts and their application in vaccinology, Dr Julie Copelyn presented a case study exploring epidemiological concepts and basic health economic principles relevant to vaccine decision-making, Mrs Susanne Noll presented on finding evidence to assist in NITAG work, as well as walked the participants through the steps of searching for literature. Feedback from participants showed that 95% rated the training as excellent or good.

Twenty participants from Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Palestine, and Iran attended the second workshop (18 - 21 June 2023) which focused primarily on using the Evidence to Recommendation process to make evidence-informed policy recommendations. Participants overall satisfaction with the course was high, with 12(63%) scoring the training as excellent and 7(37%) as good.