Terms of Reference

• Review progress towards global measles control targets and regional measles and rubella elimination goals and highlight key obstacles.
• Prepare for regular updates and review by SAGE on progress and challenges in achieving existing measles and rubella control targets and propose necessary updating of current WHO recommendations on vaccines (including outbreak response immunization) and surveillance strategies.
• Identify gaps in essential evidence and programme barriers to achieving measles and rubella/CRS elimination targets and present SAGE with proposed areas for operational or basic science research. The working group will liaise with other relevant technical advisory committees (e.g. Immunization and vaccines related implementation research advisory committee (IVIR-AC), and the Immunization Practice Advisory Committee (IPAC)) to address relevant quantitative issues as well as those related to immunization practices.
• Explore the potential use of new technologies that could help improve coverage and thereby expedite elimination of measles/rubella.

Composition

SAGE Members

• Jaleela Sayed Jawad, Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Bahrain (Member of the Working Group since January 2017, SAGE Member since 2015)
• Kim Mulholland, Professorial Fellow, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Australia (Member of the Working Group and SAGE member since July 2020)

Experts

• Ma Chao, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, China (Member of the Working Group since June 2019)
• Deepa Gamage, Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka (Member of the Working Group since June 2019)
• Susan Hahné, RIVM, the Netherlands (Member of the Working Group since July 2020)
• Youngmee Jee, Centre for Pathology and Immunology, National Institute of Health, Korean Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Republic of Korea (Member of the Working Group since January 2019, SAGE Member 2017 - 2020)
• Mark Jit, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK (Member of the Working Group since January 2017)
• Saad Omer, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA (Member of the Working Group since July 2020)
• Walter Orenstein, Emory University School of Medicine, USA (Member of the Working Group since January 2017)
• Paul Rota, Division of Viral Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA (Member of the Working Group since January 2018)
• William Schluter, Global Immunization Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA (Member of the Working Group since January 2018)

WHO Secretariat

• Natasha Crowcroft (focal point)
  Susan Wang

Former experts and SAGE members

• Nikki Turner, General Practice and Primary Care, University of Auckland, New Zealand (Chair of the Working Group, Member of the Working Group October 2015 - December 2019, SAGE Member 2014-2019)
• Narendra Arora, International Clinical Epidemiology Network, India (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2019, SAGE Member 2010 - 2016)
• David Durrheim, Hunter New England Area Health Service, Public Health Medicine, University of Newcastle, Australia (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2019, SAGE Member 2009 - 2012)
• Natasha Crowcroft, Public Health Ontario, Canada (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2018)
• William Moss, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2018)
• Susan Reef, Global Immunization Division, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2018)
• Ilesh Jani, Instituto Nacional de Saúde (National Institute for Health), Mozambique (Member of the Working Group October 2015 - October 2018, SAGE Member since 2015)
• Helen Rees, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2017, SAGE Member 2005 - 2013)
• Hyam Bashour, retired from Department of Family and Community Medicine, Damascus University, Syria (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2016, SAGE Member 2004-2010)
• Peter Figueroa, University of the West Indies, Jamaica, Former Chair of Working Group (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2016, SAGE Member 2009 - 2015)
• Heidi Larson, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - December 2015)
• Pier Luigi Lopalco, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Sweden (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - February 2015)
• El Tayeb Ahmed El Sayed, Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan (Member of the Working Group November 2011 - May 2012, SAGE member 2011 - 2012)
• Makoto Takeda, Department of Virology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan (Member of the Working Group November 2011 -September 2015)
• Olubukola (Bukky) T. Idoko, Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (Member of the Working Group since June 2019)

DECLARATION OF INTERESTS FOR WHO EXPERTS

All Working Group members completed a declaration of interests.

Four current member reported relevant interests. All interests were assessed not to constitute a conflict of interest. It was concluded that all members could take part in full in all of the discussions. The reported relevant interests are summarized below:

Susan Hahné

• Serves on the Advisory Board on Health Protection Research Unit which is a partnership PHE and LSHTM. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.

Kim Mulholland

• Serves on the Safety Monitoring Committee from the Novavax Covid-19 Vaccine program. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Worked on the DSMB Novavax Maternal RSV immunization project. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Advised Allens Law Firm on pneumococcal conjugate vaccine issues. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially significant*.

Saad Omer

• Serves on the Board of Trustees of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NIVAC) Working Group for Vaccine Hesitancy. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves on the Lancet Commission on Vaccines in the USA. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves on WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves on WHO Group B Strep Value Proposition Technical Working Group. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves as principal investigator for Tdap study in Guatemala. The study is funded by Thrasher Research Fund. This interest was perceived as non-personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves as principal investigator for Hepatitis B Vaccine Induced Immunity in Neonates pilot study. The study is funded by NIH. This interest was perceived as non-personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves as supervisor-lead for P3-MumBubVax clinical trials. This interest was perceived as non-personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Serves as a consultant for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially significant*.
• Served as a member of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee from 2014 to 2018. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.
• Served as a senior consultant for GAVI from 2016 to 2017. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially significant*.
• Serves as a consultant for FDA Best Program Through IBM. This interest was perceived as personal, non-specific and financially significant*.

Walter Orenstein

• His institution currently receives salary support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). This support supplements his efforts on polio transition of resources and the switch from trivalent oral polio vaccine to bivalent vaccine with incorporation of inactivated polio vaccine into routine immunization. This interest was perceived as non-personal, non-specific and financially significant*.
• His institution currently has a National Institutes of Health (NIH) contract on influenza pathogenesis and surveillance as well as enhancing uptake of recommended vaccines. He is the Principal Investigator for this entitled award, “Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS) Emory / University of Georgia (UGA)”. This interest was perceived as non-personal, non-specific and financially significant*.
• His institution had a subcontract with the Task Force for Global Health (TFGH) with the prime sponsor being BMGF to work on polio transition of resources and the switch from trivalent oral polio vaccine to bivalent vaccine with incorporation of inactivated polio vaccine into routine immunization. This interest was perceived as non-personal, non-specific and financially significant*.
• In July 2016, he received a travel grant from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for a scientific exchange meeting in Rockville Maryland on “Emerging Infectious Diseases – Planning a sustainable future – the role of biologics”. In July 2015, he received a travel grant from GSK for a scientific exchange meeting in Siena Italy on “Global Health 2035: Mission Grand Convergence” (vaccine innovation).This interest was perceived as non-personal, non-specific and financially insignificant*.

* According to WHO's Guidelines for Declaration of Interests (WHO expert), an interest is considered "personal" if it generates financial or non-financial gain to the expert, such as consulting income or a patent. "Specificity" states whether the declared interest is a subject matter of the meeting or work to be undertaken. An interest has "financial significance" if the honoraria, consultancy fee or other received funding, including those received by expert's organization, from any single vaccine manufacturer or other vaccine-related company exceeds 10,000 USD in a calendar year. Likewise, a shareholding in any one vaccine manufacturer or other vaccine-related company in excess of 1,000 USD would also constitute a “significant shareholding”.