Statement by John Ryan, Head of Unit, Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection, European Commission

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to represent Commissioner Dalli at this formal opening of the European Immunization week. The European Commission is happy to support this initiative by the World Health Organisation.

This campaign is of particular importance to stress the value and success of immunisation programmes to control, eliminate, and even eradicate diseases.

Immunization plays a key role to ensure the protection of our citizens and – if I may focus on a topic which is close to all our hearts – the health of children.

Immunisation has proved itself to be one of the most efficient ways to protect their health.

And yet, today, despite the excellent safety and efficacy of the vaccines available, we still see that too many children are not vaccinated.

As a result of this insufficient vaccination coverage, outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases re-appear at all-too-regular intervals. In fact, as we speak, there is a measles outbreak affecting several EU member states and concerning large numbers of persons.

We know that there are many reasons why not enough children get vaccinated.

Perhaps immunisation programmes are victims of their own success. Some parents may lack awareness about vaccination or are not familiar anymore with the effects of the diseases that vaccines prevent.

Others may refuse it on religious or philosophical grounds.

And others may have difficulties in accessing healthcare – such as migrant population groups, displaced populations or the socially and economically disadvantaged.

There is also the issue of healthcare professionals facing difficulties to ensure continuity of immunisation schedules for children relocating from another country.

Not only is there a lack of commonly agreed guidance for healthcare professionals on how to adapt children to a different schedule, but the documentation on the vaccination status of a child may be in a foreign language or even missing.

In order to better document the vaccination status of children, the Commission will be working with EU member states, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the WHO to develop common elements for recording vaccination across the EU.

This is an issue encountered by many parents who have had practical difficulties when moving around Europe with children of an age where vaccination is a key issue.

I should highlight here that the current Hungarian Presidency of the EU took the opportunity to seek a strengthened political commitment on childhood immunisation, by drafting Council Conclusions which we hope to see adopted at the next Health Council in June.

While fully respecting the competence of Member States in the delivery of healthcare, the Commission believes that there are many opportunities in the area of childhood immunisation for enhanced cooperation and coordination at EU level, working with the WHO.

Examples include:

• developing commonly agreed guidance and methodologies for reaching out to under-served populations, such as the Roma;
• strengthening monitoring and assessing vaccination coverage and surveillance for vaccine preventable diseases;
• providing support for communication strategies aimed at increasing the awareness on the safety and efficacy of vaccines and the risks of the diseases that can be prevented by them;
• providing multilingual information on vaccination in the EU for health care professionals and the public,
• developing commonly agreed guidance for healthcare professionals on how to adapt children from on; vaccination schedule to another; and
• examining with the Member States, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the WHO how to better record vaccination of children so as to make schedules easier to follow.

I believe that these are areas where the Commission, Member States and the WHO can fruitfully work together.

Let us remind ourselves that our aim is to eliminate vaccine preventable diseases. This can only be achieved by reaching and maintaining high vaccination coverage across the whole population in the EU. Thank you.