Overview

The decision to add a vaccine to a country’s immunization programme should be guided by prioritization of health interventions in the light of available resources. This means optimizing the response to the most relevant public health needs and selecting interventions that are affordable and cost-effective.

This module uses WHO concepts on introducing vaccines into national immunization programmes and health systems in order to help decision-makers appropriately prioritize the introduction of influenza vaccine or expand an existing influenza vaccination programme to include pregnant women [7]. In addition, the module includes discussion of the decision to use antenatal care services as a potential delivery channel for influenza vaccine. In places where evidence is not readily available and efforts to generate it may be significant, policy-makers and programme planners must decide whether to carry out studies to find out the burden of influenza and/or use data from other countries or regions.