Vaccine 30 (2012) 7147–7152 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Vaccine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/vaccine Monitoring of progress in the establishment and strengthening of national immunization technical advisory groups Philippe Duclos a,* , Stephanie Ortynsky b,1 , Nihal Abeysinghe c,2 , Niyazi Cakmak d,3 , Cara Bess Janusz e,4 , Barbara Jauregui e,5 , Richard Mihigo f,6 , Liudmila Mosina d,7 , Nahad Sadr-Azodi g , Yashohiro Takashima h,8 , Laure Dumolard a,9 , Marta Gacic-Dobo a,10 a Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, World Health Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, CH-1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland b University of Saskatchewan, 85 Riverside Terrace, Yorkton, Saskatchewan S3 N 0G2, Canada c Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Immunization & Vaccine Development, World Health Organization, Regional Office for South East Asia, World Health House, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110002, India d Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Programme, Regional Office for Europe, World Health Organization, Schersfigvej 8, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark e Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization, 525 23 Street NW, Washington, DC 20037, USA f Routine Immunization & New Vaccines Introduction, Immunization and Vaccine Development Cluster, Regional Office for Africa, World Health Organization, P.O Box 6, Cité de Djoué, Brazzaville, Congo g Vaccine Preventable Disease and Immunization Programme, World Health Organization, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Abdul Razzak Al-Sanhouri St, P.O. Box 7608 Nasr City, Cairo 11371, Egypt h Expanded Programme on Immunization, Regional Office for the Western Pacific, World Health Organization, United Nations Avenue, Manila 1000, Philippines article info Article history: Received 10 February 2012 Received in revised form 28 March 2012 Accepted 4 April 2012 Available online 19 April 2012 Keywords: WHO–UNICEF Joint Reporting Form National technical advisory group on immunization Monitoring abstract The majority of industrialized and some developing countries have established technical advisory bodies to guide and formulate national immunization policies and strategies. These are referred to as National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs), WHO and its partners have placed a high priority on assisting in the establishment or strengthening of functional, sustainable, and independent NITAGs. To enable systematic global monitoring of the existence and functionality of NITAGs, in 2010, WHO and UNICEF included related questions in the WHO–UNICEF Joint Reporting Form (JRF) that provides an official means for WHO and UNICEF to collect indicators of immunization programme performance. This paper presents the status of NITAGs based on the analysis of the 2010 JRF. Although 115 countries (64% of responders) reported having a NITAG in 2010, only 50% of countries reported the existence of a NITAG with a formal administrative or legislative basis. Despite limitations in the ability to compare 2010 JRF data with that from a 2008 global survey, it appears that substantial progress has been achieved glob- ally over with 43 committees reporting affirmatively about six NITAG process indicators, compared with 23 in the 2008 survey. Impressive progress has been observed in the proportion of countries reporting Abbreviations: AFR, African Region; AMR, Region of the Americas; EMR, Eastern Mediterranean Region; EUR, European Region; JRF, Joint Reporting Form; NITAG, National Immunization Technical Advisory Group; SIVAC, Supporting Independent Immunization and Vaccine Advisory Committees; SEAR, South-East Asia Region; WPR, Western Pacific Region. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 22 791 4527; fax: +41 22 791 4227. E-mail addresses: duclosp@who.int (P. Duclos), stephanie.ortynsky@usask.ca (S. Ortynsky), abeysinghen@searo.who.int (N. Abeysinghe), nca@euro.who.int (N. Cakmak), januszc@paho.org (C.B. Janusz), jauregub@paho.org (B. Jauregui), mihigor@afro.who.int (R. Mihigo), mol@euro.who.int (L. Mosina), sadrazodin@emro.who.int (N. Sadr-Azodi), takashimay@wpro.who.int (Y. Takashima), dumolardl@who.int (L. Dumolard), gacicdobom@who.int (M. Gacic-Dobo). 1 Tel.: +1 306 374 5355. 2 Tel.: +91 11 2330 9511. 3 Tel.: +45 39 17 14 74. 4 Tel.: +1 202 974 3744. 5 Tel.: +1 202 974 3413. 6 Tel.: +242 47 241 39926; fax: +242 47 241 39641. 7 Tel.: +45 39 17 15 03. 8 Tel.: +63 2 528 9746. 9 Tel.: +41 22 791 4413. 10 Tel.: +41 22 791 2873. 0264-410X/$ – see front matter © 2012 World Health Organization. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2012.04.015