The World Health Organization (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization established a Working Group on COVID-19 Vaccines to provide advice and guidance in several areas. The areas include guidance for the development of prediction models to determine the optimal age groups and target populations for vaccine introduction and guidance of vaccine introduction for optimal impact, as well as contributing to updates of target product profiles of vaccines for outbreak and endemic use.
As part of the group’s scoping of the landscape of modeling groups and initiatives related to COVID-19 vaccines, SAGE invites modelers and economists to provide information about their work on COVID-19 vaccination that addresses prioritized modeling questions. These submissions will contribute to informing deliberations around policy recommendations from the WHO SAGE Working Group on COVID-19 Vaccines on immunization. Please see the specifications below:
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Groups are encouraged to share early-stage and interim results for any of the questions as part of the ongoing process of the evidence review, gap identification, and refinement of priority questions and scenarios.
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SAGE particularly encourages models that have been fit to available epidemiological and/or economic data or validated through comparison with these data. Model review and future invitations to participate in presentations to the Working Group will be based on assessments of model performance and minimum standards, as described in this document.
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Summaries of any completed work or work planned or underway for any question may be sent via email to the WHO SAGE Secretariat at vaccineresearch@who.int.
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Please submit initial responses as soon as possible, no later than September 4, 2020, for consideration in initial reviews and deliberations. The consultation process with the modeling community will be ongoing, with more requests for input at a later stage.