SYSVAC

Systematic reviews are considered to be a useful source of evidence for the development of national recommendations. High-quality reviews synthesize findings from numerous studies and can provide reliable estimates about intervention effects. However, conducting systematic reviews requires significant resources, which may not always be available. The SYSVAC registry is intended to help NITAGs and SAGE locate existing systematic reviews that may serve their needs.

The SYSVAC registry includes a variety of systematic reviews, including living, rapid, and umbrella reviews. It allows users to search for reviews using free text and keywords (e.g., disease/pathogen, population). Reviews in the registry have been assessed for quality, using the AMSTAR 2 (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews 2) appraisal tool.

To include the most relevant systematic reviews in the field, registry staff conduct regular searches of multiple databases, including Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and different pre-print servers. For the December 2020 launch of the registry, priority has been given to systematic reviews related to COVID-19. Systematic reviews covering more diseases/pathogens will be added in 2021.

This e-learning course describes how to use existing systematic reviews to develop vaccination recommendations. Course participants follow Mary, a fictional head of her country’s NITAG, as she goes through the different steps of using existing reviews, including locating the reviews; assessing their relevance to her research question, methodological quality, and up-to-dateness; and assessing their transferability and applicability.