Vaccination Week in the Americas Set for April 23-30

Coordinated by PAHO's Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), the week-long event will focus special efforts on children and adults who have traditionally been difficult to reach—those living in rural border regions, indigenous and minority communities, remote areas, and urban and peri-urban areas with low coverage.

Each country is setting its own priorities based in part on which groups have proved difficult to reach with vaccines:

• Guatemala will target some 180,000 children under 5 with vaccines against diseases including polio, mumps, rubella and measles. For the first time in a national vaccine drive, the country will use the latest pentavalent vaccine—against diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, hepatitis B, and meningitis—on a target population of 80,000 infants.
• Paraguay’s top priority will be eliminating rubella and congenital rubella syndrome. The country plans to vaccinate 3.5 million men, women and children between the ages of 5 and 39 against the disease.
• Nicaragua is targeting more than 3 million people ages 6 to 40 with the rubella vaccine and also plans to provide more than 900,000 children with vitamin A and parasiticides.
• Brazil plans to vaccinate 12 million people over 60 against influenza. It will also target more than 190,000 indigenous people with needed vaccines.
• Peru will vaccinate nearly 3 million people ages 2 and up against yellow fever in provinces where the disease appears in animals.
• Honduras will carry out eye exams to detect cataracts and plans to provide Vitamin A to more than 750 million people, among them infants and new mothers.
• The United States’ National Infant Immunization Week 2005, sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will be held as part of Vaccination Week in the Americas.
• Canada’s National Immunization Awareness Week will coincide with the regionwide event.

Using the campaign's slogans of "Vaccination: An Act of Love" and "Love Them, Protect Them, Immunize Them," developed by PAHO and the CDC, respectively, countries are developing social communication campaigns that will include radio and television spots, posters, and other promotional materials. In 2004, campaign materials were translated into English, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as Creole for Haiti and Aymara for Bolivia. Materials for Guatemala were translated into 23 dialects for distribution in remote rural areas.

An important goal of Vaccination Week in the Americas is to form strategic partnerships and expand interagency cooperation at both the regional and international levels. PAHO, the CDC, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and many other organizations have combined technical and financial efforts to support the initiative. PAHO's five priority countries—Haiti, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guyana—are receiving special economic and technical assistance.

Last year's Vaccination Week in the Americas vaccinated 43.7 million people, mostly children, in South and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, surpassing the initial goal of 40 million people. The United States and Canada participated by publicizing the benefits of immunization.

Analysis of the results of the 2004 initiative found that 23 percent of children ages 1 to 4 who were vaccinated had not received any diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccine doses previously, and 52 percent of women of childbearing age in high-risk municipalities had never been vaccinated against tetanus and diphtheria. The findings suggest that Vaccination Week achieved its goal of helping to reduce inequity in vaccination coverage throughout the region.

The 2004 Vaccination Week in the Americas included more than 22 binational launches and a regional launch along the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Five presidents, several first ladies and a number of health ministers from throughout the region participated in the launching events.

Through similar Pan American efforts, PAHO's 35 member countries were the first to eradicate smallpox (in 1973) and polio (in 1991). The countries are now targeting measles and rubella for elimination from the Americas region.