World Immunization Week 2018 is celebrated from April 24 to April 30
Highlights
- Protected Together, #VaccinesWork is theme of World Immunization Week
- The day aims at highlighting the importance of vaccination
- Vaccination helps in preventing diseases like measles and rubella
World Immunization Week 2018 is celebrated from April 24 to April 30. Immunization is considered to be one of the most cost-effective and successful plans in the health industry. But despite this, there are over 19 million under-vaccinated and unvaccinated children across the world, reports the World Health Organization (WHO). Of these 19 million children, 1 out of 10 children have never received any vaccination and are likely to never be seen by the health system. Celebrated widely in the last week of April, World Immunization Week aims at highlighting the collective effort which is needed to ensure that every person gets protection from diseases which can be prevented from vaccines.
World Immunization Week Theme
The theme for this year's World Immunization Week is "Protected Together, #VaccinesWork". The theme is meant to encourage people at every level, starting from donors to the general public, to maximize their efforts for increasing immunization for people's health and well-being on a larger scale.
To accomplish the goal, governments from all across the world need to invest in immunization efforts. Advocates need to make vaccines a priority and people need to make efforts individually to get themselves and their families duly vaccinated.
As part of the campaign for World Immunization Week, the WHO aims at highlighting the importance of immunization and the existing gaps in global coverage. The aim is to stress on the importance of vaccines to target on donor countries, and the importance of investing in immunization efforts. The campaign will also focus on the ways in which everyone works towards driving the vaccine process.
Why is immunization more important than ever
In order to achieve the goals for sustainable development, there is an urgent need to expand access to immunization. Getting immunization regularly is important for strong primary health care and universal health coverage. It provides a contact for health care the beginning of life and offers healthy life to every child. Immunization is the one fundamental strategy for achieving other health priorities, controlling viral hepatitis, curbing antimicrobial resistance and providing a platform for adolescent health and care for newborns.
Progress towards vaccines in the past decade
Most strategic targets according to the Global Vaccine Action Plan are behind schedule. The GVAP has been endorsed by 194 Member States of the World Health Assembly in May 2012. It aims to prevent millions of deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases by 2020 by providing universal access to immunization. But despite improvements in countries and good rate of introduction of new vaccines, the GVAP targets for elimination of diseases like measles, maternal and neonatal tetanus and rubella, are all behind schedule.
It is important to intensify efforts to reach GVAP goals in order to ensure everyone's survival. The current efforts must by sustained so that no person goes without getting vaccines.
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