Peer-reviewed article
Immunisation of migrants in EU/EEA countries: Policies and practices
Cristina Giambi, Martina Del Manso, Giulia Marchetti, Kate Olsson, Karam Adel Ali et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This survey examined immunisation policies and practices for migrant children and adults across 29 EU/EEA countries in 2018. Most countries offer all national immunisation programme vaccines to child and adolescent migrants, but only about half offer them to adults. There is significant variation across countries in how vaccination records are documented and shared, and most countries do not collect data on vaccination uptake among migrant populations. The report identifies gaps in migrant-friendly strategies and cross-border documentation systems.
Key points
- 28 of 29 countries have national policies targeting child/adolescent and adult migrants, but adult coverage is more limited than for children
- 27 of 28 countries offer all National Immunisation Programme vaccines to child/adolescents; only 13 of 28 offer all vaccines to adults
- 22 countries record vaccination information for child/adolescent migrants and 19 for adult migrants, with large variation in methods
- Only 3 countries have national-level data on vaccination uptake among migrants; 20 countries do not collect this data
- Only 13 countries have procedures at community level to guarantee migrants' access to vaccination
Limitations
This is a policy survey based on self-reported information from health authorities and does not measure actual vaccination coverage or outcomes among migrant populations. The survey does not assess implementation quality or identify barriers migrants face in accessing vaccination services.
Abstract
In recent years various EU/EEA countries have experienced an influx of migrants from low and middle-income countries. In 2018, the "Vaccine European New Integrated Collaboration Effort (VENICE)" survey group conducted a survey among 30 EU/EEA countries to investigate immunisation policies and practices targeting irregular migrants, refugees and asylum seekers (later called "migrants" in this report). Twenty-nine countries participated in the survey. Twenty-eight countries reported having national policies targeting children/adolescent and adult migrants, however vaccinations offered to adult migrants are limited to specific conditions in seven countries. All the vaccinations included in the National Immunisation Programme (NIP) are offered to children/adolescents in 27/28 countries and to adults in 13/28 countries. In the 15 countries offering only certain vaccinations to adults, priority is given to diphtheria-tetanus, measles-mumps-rubella and polio vaccinations. Information about the vaccines given to child/adolescent migrants is recorded in 22 countries and to adult migrants in 19 countries with a large variation in recording methods found across countries. Individual and aggregated data are reportedly not shared with other centres/institutions in 13 and 15 countries, respectively. Twenty countries reported not collecting data on vaccination uptake among migrants; only three countries have these data at the national level. Procedures to guarantee migrants' access to vaccinations at the community level are available in 13 countries. In conclusion, although diversified, strategies for migrant vaccination are in place in all countries except for one, and the strategies are generally in line with international recommendations. Efforts are needed to strengthen partnerships and implement initiatives across countries of origin, transit and destination to develop and better share documentation in order to guarantee a completion of vaccination series and to avoid unnecessary re-vaccination. Development of migrant-friendly strategies to facilitate migrants' access to vaccination and collection of vaccination uptake data among migrants is needed to meet existing gaps.