Case Studie

Generating real-world evidence for COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness

In collaboration with WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO), MMGH supported a multi-country initiative to assess the real-world effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against symptomatic and severe disease outcomes during the Omicron period to inform context-specific vaccine policy recommendations.

The studies, included two health care worker cohorts (Egypt and, Pakistan), and two test-negative design case–control studies in (Iran, and Jordan).

The results assessd the context-specific evidence to inform vaccine policy recommendations and highlighted important vaccine effectiveness study challenges.

MMGH provided comprehensive technical and analysis support after study implementation to perform a harmonized analysis according to best practices of analysis vaccine effectiveness studies. This included review of the study country protocols, statistical analysis plans and statistical analysis. Our team also supported the country's study teams in their statistical analysis and interpretation of results, helping translate findings into clear, actionable insights for conducting VE studies during and after pandemic periods.

Key Activities

Reviewed standardized protocols for test-negative case–control studies across four countries, with tailored adaptations to reflect national surveillance capacities and data systems.

Supported alignment of data cleaning and analysis tools; contributed to data quality assurance and statistical planning for pooled and country-specific analyses.

Synthesized findings into a regional report including lessons learned and recommendation conducting VE studies that aim to inform national decisions on booster doses and priority population targeting during a pandemic.

Outcomes

MMGH’s support enhanced study teams' ability to generate consistent and relevant study results —strengthening national capacity for future effectiveness monitoring and enhancing regional preparedness for emerging variants.