Vaccination Week in the Americas Goes Global
By: Mirta Roses-Periago, MD
Hundreds of children from the border area of Bolivia and Peru receive vaccines against infectious diseases during the launch of the 9th Vaccination Week in the Americas.
On April 2012, a decade of trailblazing efforts by all the countries and territories of the Americas will make a public health dream come true as the first World Immunization Week is launched. Such a towering endeavor will provide a crowning significance to the celebration of the 10th Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA).
Along this journey, this initiative has resulted in more than 365 million individuals vaccinated. In the beginning, what is today the largest multinational health effort in the Western Hemisphere was far more humble, but it turned a public health challenge into a great opportunity to achieve health for all. Vaccination became the most equitable collective action to make the right to health a reality.
Historically, the countries and territories of the Americas have been champions in immunizing their populations and promoting a culture of prevention. Working together, they have been on the global forefront in the eradication and elimination of vaccine-preventable diseases such as smallpox, polio, and endemic measles and rubella. Other vaccine-preventable diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, meningitis, as well as hepatitis A and B, have also decreased significantly.
Direct reductions in morbidity and mortality provided by strong vaccination programs have resulted in a reduced burden on families and health care systems alike. Moreover, achievements in vaccination have spilled over by strengthening health systems, rewarding health workers and volunteers, and freeing individuals from the mental and physical sequelae of vaccine-preventable diseases; thus contributing to more economically productive and inclusive societies.
Evolution of the Vaccination Week
The overall success of vaccination programs hides the challenges of the tremendous inequities characteristic of the Americas. Because of this, gaps in vaccination coverage at local clusters have persisted, piercing the public health protection net and placing many communities at risk.
It was this reality that sparked the idea of vaccination week. In 2001 and into 2002, the last regional outbreak of endemic measles occurred in Venezuela and spread into Colombia, resulting in a total of 2,500 cases. It also moved the Ministers of Health of the Andean Region to sign the Sucre Agreement on April 23, 2002, calling for a simultaneous Andean vaccination week in the following year.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) raised this flag and over the following months carried out advocacy efforts to promote and expand the initiative to other countries in forums across the Americas. By the time the first Vaccination Week in the Americas was launched in April 2003, 19 countries had come on board. Under the slogan “Vaccination: an Act of Love,” national and local authorities with enthusiastic social participation and health volunteer engagement, rallied around the new imitative. Gathering along border areas, health care workers fanned out across the region on foot, by river and by air to reach the un-reached. Populations with non-existent or incomplete vaccination schedules living in urban fringes, rural and border areas, and in indigenous and afrodescendent communities were among the most benefited. More than 16 million individuals of all ages were vaccinated during this pioneering effort. By September 2003, Vaccination Week in the Americas was endorsed by all Ministers of Health of the Americas at PAHO’s Directing Council, with a resolution that mandated future celebrations of the initiative.
From then on, vaccine week has flourished throughout the region, with ever-expanding goals and outreach. It covers all the countries and territories in the Western Hemisphere and inspired sister initiatives in other regions of the World Health Organization. Europe (2005), the Eastern Mediterranean (2010), Africa (2011), and the Western Pacific (2011) have implemented their own vaccination weeks, designed to meet the distinctive needs of each region. South-East Asia has committed to come forward in 2012, completing the loop for the launching of the first World Immunization Week.
Key Elements to Success
An initiative born from the response to an outbreak in two countries soon covered more than 40 countries and territories in the Americas. In just a decade, it evolved to become a global effort. There are crucial elements learned to promote and implement other overarching, high achieving public health endeavors.
The vaccination weeks flourished thanks, in part, to the political visibility and support granted by Presidents, First Ladies, Ministers of Health and community leaders, including mayors and religious figures, as well as leaders of international organizations, NGOs and social service groups. The participation of internationally renowned artists and sport celebrities in events, and the intensive media coverage spotlighting the work of national immunization programs, raised public awareness and mobilized private and public corporations.
The country ownership at the core of the initiative’s design – including its flexibility to adapt to each nation’s circumstances – was another key aspect to success. Each year, countries and territories decide the specific focus and operations of vaccination weeks based on their current national health objectives. This sometimes has taken the form of large scale vaccination campaigns; others have focused on communication initiatives and health promotion efforts; and others have used Vaccination Week in the Americas as a platform for new vaccine introduction or for the integration of other preventive interventions with vaccination. While country measures differ, each April everyone is ready to party and celebrate vaccination facilitated by international communication and cooperation across borders, promoting equity and solidarity in the spirit of true Pan-Americanism.
A mother proudly displays her daughter’s vaccination card after visiting a health post in the Senkata neighborhood of El Alto, Bolivia.
Close cooperation and combined efforts between countries and international and local partners have also been a distinctive characteristic of Vaccination Week in the Americas. Countries foot the bulk of funding their activities, but the regional and national activities have also counted on the monetary and technical support of various key partners, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation (AECID), multiple NGOs, service groups, private companies and local authorities, among many others.
The PAHO Revolving Fund for Vaccine Procurement has been a key instrument as well This fund – the only such mechanism in the world – allows 39 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean to benefit from significant economies of scale and a timely supply of high-quality vaccines at the lowest prices. The Revolving Fund provides net savings of at least 11 percent on the cost of vaccines and syringes, serves as a catalyst for price negotiations and leads to significantly lower prices for the introduction of new vaccines. The Fund has also reduced uncertainty, allowing vaccine developers and manufacturers an effective programming of investments, by providing predictable demand and payments, a simplified mechanism of one-stop shopping, and a reduction in unnecessary losses.
The global community continues to confront many challenges in the control of vaccine-preventable diseases, among them sustaining the public trust and confidence in these miracle tools, as well as the persistence of polio transmission and the resurgence and importation of measles into free areas. The increasing number of new vaccines that are going to become available in the near future is a reminder of the need to ensure sustainable financing, strong public health systems and public opinion support. The millions of deaths averted by the appropriate use of vaccines are a powerful call to celebrate the upcoming World Immunization Week as an ACT OF LOVE.
Vaccination: an Act of Love
For more than 100 years, the Pan American Health Organization has walked the streets and sidewalks of the Americas. Together with the people of the region, PAHO has told stories of transformed lives, achievements, challenges, and lessons learned. PAHO gives recognition to a group of men and women who joined in this journey and who, with commitment and dedication, captured the images presented here through their camera lenses.
To the late Julio Vizcarra, to Carlos Gaggero, Armando Waak, David Spitz and Harold Ruiz – and to all those who anonymously have contributed to this legacy – we thank you for capturing our stories, and for believing that health is not a privilege, but the innate right of every human being.
Mirta Roses-Periago, MD is director of the Pan American Health Organization. In April 2012, all regions of the World Health Organization will celebrate vaccine week.
vaccination programmer should be integral part of primary@ secondary education system.each person should involve in this network.
— DR PRAEEN KUMAR on 2011-12-14