Vaccination Week in the Americas Promotes Equity in Health

For the third year in a row, the countries of the Western Hemisphere joined forces for Vaccination Week in the Americas, April 23–30, a regionwide effort to promote greater health equity through the use of vaccines.

The top goals of this year's initiative were to complete children's vaccination schedules and to reach people in the remotest corners of the region, to make sure that millions of children and adults are immunized against preventable diseases.

The official launching of this year's initiative took place in Washington, D.C., on April 25. Mirta Roses, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), insisted that no child should ever be denied the benefits of immunization for lack of funds.

"Health promoters, nurses, doctors, and volunteers are fanning out today all over the hemisphere to vaccinate kids and promote the benefits of immunization. Immigrants and migrants are being targeted, health departments are collaborating across borders, and the whole continent is caught up in this tremendous event," Roses said.

U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said at the opening event: "We need to do all we can across borders to prevent disease….More than 35 countries in the Western Hemisphere have worked together on this unprecedented event to highlight the need for routine vaccinations and to promote access to health services for infants and children."

This year's initiative coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine. In the subsequent half-century, smallpox has been eradicated from the world, polio has been eliminated from the Americas, and there is progress toward the elimination of measles and rubella from the region—all thanks to vaccines.

For the countries participating in Vaccination Week in the Americas, immunization is one of the most valuable interventions for the promotion of equity in health. "The political commitment on the part of governments to maintaining vaccination as a regional public good is clear from the high levels of political priority, resource mobilization, and coordination and cooperation between agencies during this week," said a PAHO communiqué on the initiative.

Vaccination Week in the Americas grew out of a proposal made by the ministers of health of the Andean region four years ago. During the first event, in 2003, more than 16 million children and women of childbearing age received vaccines. By 2004, the number vaccinated had risen to 43 million and included children, women, and older adults.

Among the goals this year were:

• Reducing inequities in immunization, particularly in hard-to-reach areas.
• Vaccinating children under 5 who have never been vaccinated or to complete their immunization schedules.
• Vaccinating high-risk groups and the elderly.
• Keeping the region free of measles and polio.
• Supporting efforts to eliminate rubella and congenital rubella syndrome.
• Strengthening epidemiological surveillance.

Special efforts focused on high-traffic border areas, indigenous communities, low-income urban and peri-urban areas, and other areas with traditionally low coverage.

"Every country set its own goals according to its specific health needs, within the framework of the Expanded Immunization Program," said Jon Andrus, chief of PAHO's immunization unit. He added that the over-arching goal was to raise rates of vaccine coverage throughout the region.

Communication efforts included promotional materials produced in local dialects and taking into account cultural differences, aimed at carrying messages about the importance of vaccines to every corner of the continent.

Nils Kastberg, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said that Vaccination Week is "not just a matter of vaccinating children, as important as that is. The week is an opportunity not only to reach children with life-saving vaccines but also to raise awareness among the public, especially adolescent mothers, who lack information and may not be aware of the importance of having their kids immunized. Parents and communities vitally need this information and awareness in order to demand immunization as a human right, one of the foundations of their children's survival and development."