Robert Hall attends the SAGE meetings

In his capacity as Chair of the Technical Advisory Group on Immunization and Vaccine Preventable Diseases for the Western Pacific Region of WHO, Robert Hall of the DEPM recently attended the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) in Geneva. These meetings are held twice per year and recommend global health policy to the Director-General of the WHO.
 
In the same capacity, Robert attended the meeting of the Regional Certification Commission for Poliomyelitis Eradication for the Western Pacific Region of WHO in Manila. This group meets every year to discuss whether the region remains polio-free. The last indigenous case was reported in Cambodia in 1997 and the region was certified as polio-free in 2000. Following a discussion of the reports from the 37 countries, the RCC concluded that the region remained free of polio.

Within this conference a range of issues were discussed including: the transition from oral polio vaccine (OPV) to inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), the circulation of wild-type polio in Israel despite IPV and the need to eliminate the remaining endemic areas of polio in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.