KHRC Joins Efforts to Strengthen Maternal Vaccine Safety in Africa

March 15, 2025 | News Feed | Reading time: 4 min

Ensuring the safety of vaccines for pregnant women is crucial to protecting both mothers and their babies. Recognizing this, Ghana and Kenya are preparing to launch a pilot project for active maternal vaccine safety surveillance. This project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aims to create a system that closely monitors vaccine safety using a pregnancy registry, which will be linked to the African Union Smart Safety Surveillance (AU3S) platform, to strengthen efforts to safeguard maternal and child health.

As part of preparatory activities, the Kintampo Health Research Centre (KHRC) participated in a three-day AU3S Maternal Immunization (AU3S_MI) workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, from March 3rd to 5th, 2025. The workshop brought together experts, researchers, and regulatory representatives from the Food and Drugs Authority in Ghana and Pharmacy and Poisons Board in Kenya to discuss the project's implementation, key procedures, and key activities required for the project’s success.

During the conference, members shared insights on their national vaccine safety monitoring systems (pharmacovigilance), with updates from key working groups, including the Signal Management Group, Data Working Group, and Project Leadership Team. Discussions also centered around ways to improve collaboration between Ghana and Kenya, to ensure that robust safety systems are in place to support the introduction of new maternal vaccines.

KHRC was represented by its Director, Prof. Kwaku Poku Asante, Principal Investigator and Co-Chair of the Project Leadership Team, Mr. Elvis Ato Wilson, Member of the Project Leadership Team and Signal Management Group, Dr. Afia Korkor Opare Yeboah, Pharmacist and Member of the Signal Management Group and Richard Ampomah Boakye, Senior Data Manager and Member of the Data Working Group.

About The AU3S_MI Pilot Project

The African Union Smart Safety Surveillance Maternal Immunization (AU3S_MI) pilot project is designed to ensure that maternal vaccines are effectively tracked, and any adverse effects are promptly reported to national regulatory bodies, such as Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority (FDA)

This pilot project will also assess how well existing vaccine safety monitoring systems function and whether they can quickly identify potential risks. If new maternal vaccines are introduced, the AU3S_MI project will pilot an active safety surveillance system in Ghana and Kenya, to help strengthen vaccine monitoring and build confidence in maternal immunization programmes.