Fourth Meeting on Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Laboratory Networks in the Western Pacific Region
11-15 March 2013 - Manila, Philippines
Background Information
The polio and measles/rubella laboratory networks have played a crucial role in maintaining poliofree status and in making progress towards achieving the goals of measles elimination by 2012 and accelerated rubella control by 2015 in the Western Pacific Region by providing timely and reliable laboratory confirmation and virus identification. In addition, the Japanese encephalitis (JE) laboratory network has been established to improve the capability of JE case confirmation in the Region, as recommended by the seventeenth Technical Advisory Group on Immunization and Vaccine Preventable Diseases held in 2008.
High laboratory performance levels have been maintained for these three vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD) laboratory networks through a WHO annual accreditation system. Molecular detection capacity has been strengthened in polio and measles/rubella network laboratories and timely molecular data have been provided to the national surveillance and immunization programmes. Despite the progress and success of the VPD labnets in the Region, there are still remaining issues or challenges to maintain the high quality performance of network laboratories in the Region.
The meeting will provide global and regional updates and new developments in the VPD laboratory networks; identify challenges in the Region and will further improve the quality of VPD laboratory networks in order to support maintaining polio-free status, eliminating measles and controlling rubella and Japanese encephalitis in the Region. The meeting will be organized in three parts, the first part for the polio network laboratories on 11-12 March, the second part for measles and rubella network laboratories on 13-14 March and the third part for JE network laboratories on 15 March 2013.
Objectives
- Polio network laboratories
- To review the performance and the implementation status of new requirements of the polio network laboratories especially for intratypic differentiation (ITD) laboratories in this Region
- To identify the challenges and define/develop the plans for the expanding roles of the polio network laboratories to maintain polio-free status in the Region
- Measles and rubella network laboratories
- To review the progress and identify challenges of measles/rubella laboratories, present and discuss the Regional Committee resolution WPR/RC63.R5 on measles elimination and acceleration of rubella control and regional guideline to verify measles elimination
- To develop plans to further strengthen the molecular detection capacity and to ensure the performance of network laboratories to support measles elimination and rubella control goals in the Region
- Japanese encephalitis network laboratories
- To review the progress of the recently established JE laboratory network in the Region
- To develop a plan to sustain the labnet activities and further strengthen the performance of network laboratories to support JE control in the Region
- To discuss coordination of quality assurance-related activities of network laboratories, integration of the laboratory aspects of other communicable diseases with existing networks and how to ensure the sustainability of the networks.