Research capability using real-world data for COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in Southeast Asia

Background: COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness (VE) monitoring is critical for directing control tactics. Secondary database analyses are a useful and increasingly popular research method. We evaluated the contribution of Southeast Asian (SEA) countries to the worldwide VE literature and discussed SEA hospitals' capabilities to conduct COVID-19 VE studies utilizing current databases.Methods: The study was conducted from November 2022 to March 2023. Using the International Vaccine Access Centre’s VE studies repository, we estimated SEA contribution to global COVID-19 VE publications to identify countries with limited to no publications. IQVIA’s clinical research network was used to identify potential hospitals from these countries. An online, self-completion survey was adapted from the “vACCine covid-19 monitoring readinESS” protocol, to capture information on hospitals’ database, VE study experience, clinical and key COVID-19 data availability. Three capability groups were defined (Good, Average, Limited). Descriptive analyses for response rate, data availability, and capability group were conducted.Results: Asian countries contributed only 7% of the global COVID-19 VE literature, with 1.9% coming from Southeast Asia and 5.1% from the Western Pacific region. The survey included hospitals from the IQVIA research network in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. 62.5% of the eight hospitals surveyed demonstrated strong or average research capabilities. Conclusion: This survey demonstrates the potential for real-world evidence (RWE) data generation in countries with limited RWE publications on COVID19 VE.