Evaluating COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness

Drs. Sridhar, Schmid and Rubin-Smith provided technical assistance to the WHO's High Threat Pathogen Team and Albania's Institute of Public Health to develop and implement a national study to measure COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness among health workers in Albania. The primary objective of the study was to measure the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection amongst healthcare workers. Secondary objectives included determining vaccine effectiveness and duration by age, by co-morbidities, and against emerging strains of SARS-CoV-2.

The BCH team provided technical support to establish systems for monitoring COVID-19 vaccine administration to health care workers at hospitals, as well as developed and implemented weekly surveys among health care workers to assess vaccination status (or reasons for non-vaccination, describing differences between health care workers who received vaccines against COVID-19 and those who did not) and incidence of COVID-19 infection. The BCH team collaborated on the development of a database for storing, managing and analyzing data on COVID-19 vaccination and infection, as well as setting up data quality (completeness, timeliness) verification systems and identify gaps in data collected, including crosschecking national registries for vaccination status and positive SARS-CoV-2 test results. The team supported data analysis and published the findings with the Albania Institute of Public Team and the WHO in a series of abstracts and academic papers.