Fourth Consultation of the Regional Expert Panel for Verification of Hepatitis B Control in the South-East Asia Region, Mumbai, India 16–18 January 2024

Overview

• Regional Action Plan for Viral Hepatitis 2016–2021 adopted by the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia;
• Regional Vaccine Action Plan 2016–2020 (RVAP) with the goal of accelerating hepatitis b B control;
  
• Following other WHO regions, the regional Immunization Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) recommended in 2016 that a regional control goal be established; with a target of ≤1% hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) seroprevalence among children aged 5 years by 2020, and that this be aligned with the Global Health Sector Strategy on Viral Hepatitis 2016–2021 (GHSSVH). 

To measure progress towards and verify the achievement of this goal, the WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia had appointed a Regional Expert Panel for Verification of Hepatitis B Control (SEA-REP); in 2019; with the following terms of reference:

• Conduct desk reviews of the information submitted by countries for verification of the regional hepatitis B control goal as per the protocol established in the Guidelines for verification of achievement of hepatitis B control target through immunization in the South-East Asia Region prepared by the Regional Office.
• Carry out visits to countries and WHO offices where necessary.
• Participate in technical meetings organized by the Regional Office as required.
• Make recommendations to the Regional Director on whether the target of reducing chronic hepatitis B prevalence to less than 1% among children at least 5 years old has been achieved.

Four countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Thailand) were validated in 2019 by this Expert Panel for having achieved the goal, with nationally representative serosurveys as key evidence.