Publications

African Vaccine Regulatory Forum (AVAREF) - Strategy and Guidance for Emergency Preparedness

African Vaccine Regulatory Forum (AVAREF) - Strategy and Guidance for Emergency Preparedness

The African Vaccine Regulatory Forum (AVAREF) created by the WHO in 2006 as an informal capacity building network aimed at improving the ethics and regulatory oversight of interventional clinical trials being conducted in Africa, has demonstrated its value in strengthening regulatory and ethics reviews, promoting harmonized standards and approaches and accelerating the review of priority public health vaccines. Critically, as the Ebola experience demonstrated, collaboration and information exchange should not end at the point of joint review of clinical protocols but should cover the entirety of the product life cycle.