Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) of WHO asked the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) to provide support to a review of evidence on the safety of vaccinations in pregnant and lactating women. This request related to uncertainties about the safety of vaccination – whether intended or inadvertent – of pregnant women during mass vaccination campaigns. Such evidence would be particularly important in situations where manufacturers do not recommend the vaccination of pregnant women on solely precautionary grounds. However, evidence related to this issue is limited, as pre-licensing clinical trials of vaccines do not usually include pregnant and lactating women. Reports available also provide limited post-licensing data, as once again, pregnant women are usually not included in clinical trials. This in turn has limited the ability to make evidence-based decisions and provide optimal guidance on the use of vaccines in this population.

This is the third annual report jointly written by United Nations agencies on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular SDG 2 – Zero Hunger) and the World Health Assembly 2030 targets for nutrition in the Asia and Pacific region. The first part of this report tracks progress on key SDG 2 indicators and World Health Assembly targets up to 2019. The second part of the report focuses on challenges and possible solutions to improve maternal and child diets in the Asia and Pacific region.

This Annex is intended to help policy makers and educators with making decisions on running schools as safely as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the forefront of all considerations and decisions should be the continuity of education for children for their  overall  well-being,  health  and  safety.  Nonetheless,  all  decisions  will  have  implications  for  children,  parents  or  caregivers,  teachers and other staff and more broadly, their communities and societies. This document was developed with input from the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of Experts on Educational Institutions and COVID-19 and experts from WHO, UNICEF, and UNESCO, who jointly reviewed the latest evidence to develop this interim guidance, which considers equity, resource implications, and feasibility.