Celebrating 120 Years of Solidarity in Advancing Health and Well-Being, Leaving No One Behind
Every April during Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA), the countries and territories in the Region of the Americas celebrate the unique power of vaccination to prevent disease. For the past 20 years, VWA has been one of the flagship initiatives of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), vaccinating an estimated 1 billion individuals through the activities conducted under its framework.
VWA initially grew out of a proposal by the Ministers of Health of countries in the Andean subregion following a 2002 measles outbreak in Venezuela and Colombia. The ministers called for a harmonized, annual, international vaccination effort as a means of preventing future outbreaks. The proposal evolved and gained momentum in the succeeding months, and with PAHO support, 19 countries and territories participated in the first VWA in 2003. That September, the budding initiative was endorsed by PAHO Member States during the 44th Directing Council, setting the political mandate for the implementation of VWA in future years.
© PAHO/WHO Guatemala | 2013. Vaccination Week in the Americas is officially launched.
Celebrities have helped PAHO and public health authorities, promoting vaccination to reach broader audiences. Among them, the Jamaican olympian, Usain Bolt, and the Brazilian football star, Ronaldinho; star entertainers and musicians, such as Ricardo Montaner and Don Francisco; and beloved children’s characters, namely, the Sesame Street puppets.
The Region of the
Americas has been
the first in the
world to eliminate
polio, measles, rubella,
congenital rubella and neonatal tetanus
EVOLUTION OF A
GLOBAL MOVEMENT
VWA served as a model for other WHO Regions to develop their own sister initiatives. The first to follow suit was the European Region, creating European Immunization Week in 2005.
In 2010, the Eastern Mediterranean Region launched its first vaccination week, followed by the African Region and Western Pacific Region in 2011, and the South-East Asia Region in 2012.
Week reached a milestone in 2012 when the Ministers of Health of 194 WHO Member States established the World Immunization Week (WIW).
