Table 6 Recommendations for improving vaccine policy-making process

Stakeholder engagement at all levels

I have one recommendation that in policy-making process all stakeholders must be engaged. By stakeholders I mean right from those benefiting from the service and the service providers. Therefore, to me it is team work and you need everybody with an interest on board so that when decision is taken, it is implemented together. (R09, county level)

The beneficiaries of a policy are important in policy making process. If you ask me, I would be more direct with health providers as well. They are the entry point and should form part of policy making particularly when the vaccine is not surrounded by controversy. These are facilitators who can also be pushback factors when there are controversies. (R03, national level)

It is important to get buy in from communities and opinion leaders to avoid resistance over misinformation, that is the greatest lesson I think that has really come out, because you can have all good intentions but if the opinion leaders do not understand then there is miscommunication then you get very low uptake. (R10, county level)

So actually involving the, the entry point to any introduction of any antigen also helps a lot. Because if you avoid some people somewhere down the ground, they can be a roadblock and then you find that you don’t succeed. (R15, county level)

Improve intra-governmental communication

Engage the counties more, we are in a new system of devolution so I think moving forward we need to have more engagement. We have seen some attempts …but increasing the engagement. (R17, county level)

I think one of the lessons has been being inclusive. We must be inclusive in passing of information. (R01, county level)