Procedure for assessing the acceptability, in principle, of vaccines for purchase by United Nations agencies

Overview

The World Health Organization (WHO), through its Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals, provides advice to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other United Nations agencies on the acceptability, in principle, of vaccines considered for purchase by such agencies. This service is called prequalification. The purpose of the United Nations prequalification assessment is to provide assurance that candidate vaccines: (a) meet WHO recommendations on quality, safety and efficacy, including compliance with WHO’s recommended standards for good manufacturing practices (GMP) and good clinical practice 318WHO Technical Report Series No. 978, 2013 WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization Sixty-first report (GCP); and (b) meet the operational packaging and presentation specifications of the relevant United Nations agency. The aim is to ensure that vaccines provided through the United Nations for use in national immunization services in different countries are safe, effective and suitable for the target populations at the recommended immunization schedules and with appropriate concomitant products.