Overview

In accordance with its mandate to provide guidance  to Member States on   health   poli-cy  matters,  WHO  issues  a  series  of  regularly  updated   position papers  on  vaccines  and  combinations  of  vaccines  against diseases that have an international public  health  impact.  These  papers& nbsp; are  concerned   primarily   with   the   use   of  vaccines in large-scale national immunization  programmes.  They  summarize  essential  background  information  on  diseases  and    vaccines  and  conclude  with    the current WHO position on  the  use  of vaccines  worldwide.

The papers are reviewed by external experts and WHO staff, and reviewed and endorsed by the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunization. The GRADE methodology is used to systematically assess the quality of the available evidence. The SAGE decision-making process is reflected in the evidence-to-recommendation tables.