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EPF Continues Work on Vaccination for Patients with Chronic Conditions

Because of gaps in vaccination uptake among patients, and the important risks patients with chronic conditions face from vaccine-preventable diseases, EPF started an initiative in 2018 on providing information and supporting patient organisations’ advocacy on the importance of vaccination.

We started by surveying our members on this topic to get a picture of the needs and gaps in the patient community. Last year, we developed several information resources that together form a toolkit aimed primarily at supporting the advocacy efforts of national patient groups. The tools available now include a background report; two factsheets (English, Romanian, French and German); and a Power Point template presentation. We also held a pilot workshop with the patient community in Romania, which took place in Bucharest in close collaboration with our member organisation COPAC.

This year, we are continuing work on this important topic.

  • Our key project will be the development of a Patient’s Guide to Vaccination – a concise, portable information tool that expands and goes beyond the information already available in factsheet format.
  • We will be preparing a policy brief for our members to give a comprehensive overview of the current EU-level activities and initiatives.
  • We will also hold two further national workshops. A second workshop will be held in Romania, in Cluj, in late May, to follow up on the commitments from last year’s workshop. A second workshop will be held in the latter part of 2019 in a country to be decided. 

EPF is also participating in the EU Joint Action on Vaccination, EU-JAV, co-ordinated by the French public health research institute INSERM. We are part of the stakeholder group of the Joint Action.

Call for interest: patient reviewers

If you are a patient organisation representative and would be interested in giving input and user-testing the content of the Patient’s Guide to Vaccination, please get in touch with EPF by emailing policy@eu-patient.eu.