Azerbaijan aims to reach 70% coverage of COVID-19 vaccines by mid-2022 after having exceeded the global target at the end of last year

The main purpose of the mission is to discuss WHO′s vision and strategy to achieve the full benefits of vaccination for the next decade within the framework of the European Immunization Agenda 2030 (EIA2030) and how COVID-19 pandemic caused significant problems in routine childhood vaccination programs in all the countries in the European Region.

Within the three-day mission, Dr. Siddhartha Datta, the Acting Director for Country Health Programmes, and Dr. Roberta Pastore, the Team Lead for Vaccine Preventable Diseases, had a series of meetings with national healthcare authorities and international partners.

Today, WHO Country Office in Azerbaijan organized the “Data for Action” exercise with participation of national healthcare authorities and international partners on COVID-19 vaccines and commended Azerbaijan for exceeding the 40% vaccination coverage set by the WHO for December 2021. Azerbaijan has reached around 47% vaccination coverage with the COVID-19 vaccines at the end of 2021 through development of effective strategies. During the event, the summary of the available data from Azerbaijan to shape evidence-informed action including data from the behavioural insight surveys and other formative research results were presented. Aljafar Jafarov, Epidemiologist at the Republican Hygiene and Epidemiology Center, representing the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Azerbaijan, presented the country report, mid- and late 2022 targets and strategies, as well as national data, data-driven actions, examples, and outcomes. WHO expert Roberta Pastore facilitated the discussion around the data, main challenges in COVID-19 vaccine roll-out highlighting the agreement on actions to be carried out by the country. WHO will continue to support Azerbaijan to achieve the vaccination target for COVID-19 vaccines of 70% by mid-2022. To reach this target, the use of local data from regions and sub-regions are very important to ensure we reach as big a group of people who are in the higher risk groups and are yet unvaccinated.

The European Immunization Agenda 2030 (‎EIA2030)‎ is a vision and strategy to achieve the full benefits of vaccination in the WHO European Region for the next decade.

The EU-funded “COVID-19 Vaccination Support” project, implemented by the World Health Organization since June 2021, covers three-year fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthens daily immunization programs in six Eastern Partnership countries including Azerbaijan.

The project is part of the continued support of the European Union and the WHO to Azerbaijan.