Vaccine Introduction Guidelines: Adding a Vaccine to a National Immunization Programme: Decision and Implementation

This document aims to help country decision-makers to decide whether to add a new vaccine to a national immunisation programme (NIP) and if so, to help NIP managers to implement the operational steps to add the vaccine. The document discusses policy and programmatic aspects and attempts to provide guidance for technically correct decisions and implementation. It may be used when considering whether to introduce a vaccine in the immunisation programme, for operations guidance after deciding to introduce a vaccine, and to monitor the implementation and evaluate the impact of a new vaccine. It aims to be both a planning tool, as well as a supporting tool to advocate political decision-makers to introduce a vaccine. It proposes a generic process to assess the available vaccines for introduction, followed by the common operational steps to introduce the vaccine(s). Annex 1 presents specific issues related to certain vaccines.