WHO CC Update
The World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre (WHO CC) at Imperial College London is a public health education and training centre. Its mission is to train the next generation of healthcare professionals and researchers. As part of that goal, the unit offers opportunities for students, from the UK and other countries, visiting Imperial to attend sessions hosted by researchers in the unit.
Dr Camille Garja, member of the GP network and RCGP junior international committee, recently welcomed a group of junior medical students from the city of Hiroshima in Japan. Despite having excellent health care, Japan has only recently began confronting the need for major reform in its medical care system, especially regarding primary care. There is now more emphasis on introducing the General Practitioner/Family Physician (GP/FP) system, and the students were keen to know how public health along with primary care improves lives in a broader sense.
The WHO CC unit was invited to host the students. Dr Harumi Quezada-Yamamoto, a physician in the UK and WHO CC researcher, introduced the group to the ideas of public health and the role of primary care in improving the lives of patients. The session allowed the students to engage and share concerns that affect the Japanese population, particularly with access to health care. Patients in Japan continue to utilise specialist services, and this not only leads to unnecessary strain on the system but may not help patients meet their health needs. In many rural areas, there are problems gaining access to health facilities and the lack of available transport makes it difficult for patients to see a doctor.
During their second day visit, the students were offered the opportunity to join WHO CC fellowship trainees for the Achieving Excellence (ACE) group talk, held every Wednesday. Alongside the regular attendees, the students were joined by a trainee doctor from Imperial College, and two junior medical students from St Georges’s Medical School, University of London: Karthik Ponnapula and Harman Bhandal.
The ACE group meeting began by welcoming Emilie Karafillakis, a research fellow and doctoral student from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), who previously worked with the WHO CC before moving to her current role. Emilie is currently part of the Vaccine Confidence Project at LSHTM investigating how public perceptions and beliefs affect vaccination programmes and vaccine trials. Although their research showed that the majority of populations across the world are confident in vaccination, vaccine hesitancy is growing in many countries. European countries now rank lowest in confidence in the safety of vaccines, with social media playing a prominent role in reducing trust in vaccines. This erosion of trust can have serious consequences and can take years to be rebuilt. A relevant example is rumours about alleged side effects of HPV vaccines. From 2009 to 2013, such unclaimed rumours resulted in a decrease in vaccine coverage from 73% to less than 5% in Japan. These concerns, facilitated by social media and online translation tools, eventually spread to other countries such as Denmark and Ireland.
Research has shown that GPs are a trusted source of information on medicines for patients. They can therefore play a pivotal role in responding to vaccine hesitancy by listening to and understanding public concerns in different communities and by participating in activities to rebuild trust. This could help prevent the unnecessary shutdown of vaccination programmes, decrease in coverage rates, and disease outbreaks.