I'd be happy to do that.
As Dr. Quach indicated, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization is a long-standing committee that has been providing advice to the Government of Canada, to the Public Health Agency, on the optimal use of vaccines in the population over many years. They do their work by looking at the science and evidence that is available and they are experts in their fields of immunology, pediatrics, infectious disease, behavioural science and economics. They consult with the public health consultative ethics group and their job is to, with all of that combined data and expertise, look at benefits to the Canadian public of particular approaches to vaccination.
We rely on that expertise, and we rely on the independence of the committee, to bring forward the guidance that provinces and territories take into account as they make their own decisions on how they will implement their vaccination programs.
The committee publishes statements, as you will have seen, on the COVID situation and they update those statements as more evidence comes to bear. They use systematic methods for the analysis of their data so it's always done according to international standards. They are one among a number of international committees called NITAGs, national immunization technical advisory groups, that work together and work independently as well to provide both global as well as domestic advice on optimal use of vaccines.
Their advice has stood the test of time in this country. We see the success of vaccination programs and we see the success of efforts to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases. We also see from NACI where more research is needed and where there are gaps in our efforts to ensure that our population is well protected from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Thank you.