DSRU attends World Vaccine Congress Europe

We attended the World Vaccine Congress in Amsterdam in October, as part of a large delegation from Vaccine Monitoring Collaboration for Europe (VAC4EU).

The DSRU’s Debabrata Roy participated in a panel discussion on “Enhancing Global Vaccine Safety: Definitions, Data, and Public Trust”, alongside Marco Cavaleri (European Medicines Agency), Walter Straus, (Moderna), Ofer Levy, (Boston Children’s Hospital), Y. Tony Yang (George Washington University) and Emilie Karafillakis (the Vaccine Confidence Project).

The discussion highlighted the importance of strengthening patient understanding of benefit–risk. The decision-making process is complex, influenced by personal values, lived experience and the way information is communicated. Engaging openly with healthcare professionals and patients who hold different views is vital to rebuilding confidence in vaccination.

Achieving this requires robust definitions, reproducible evidence and clear, transparent communication. Federated networks such as VAC4EU demonstrate how international collaboration transforms real-world data into robust evidence, strengthening both scientific understanding and patient trust.

The key take home message was that vaccine confidence grows when patients are partners in understanding benefit and risk, not just recipients of information.