The 21 st Annual Vaccination Week of the Americas (VWA) 2023 commenced on Saturday, April
22 to 29 April, and is taking place throughout the Americas to prevent childhood diseases under the umbrella of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The campaign aim is to reach more than 92 million people across the Region with 144 million doses of different life-saving vaccines.
The Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a department of the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labor, Section Youth Health Care Baby Wellness Clinic, stands in solidarity with the VWA campaign.
CPS will be commemorating its own vaccination outreach activities starting at the end of May into early June targeting four to 17-year-olds. VWA coincides with Carnival and therefore CPS organizes its own outreach several weeks later.
PAHO has called on countries to step-up routine vaccination programs as the risk of disease outbreaks in the Americas
reaches a 30-year high due to a decline in vaccination coverage.
The vaccine-preventable disease campaign will take place under the theme “Get up to date #EachVaccineCounts.”
It is very important for every child to get vaccinated against childhood diseases which prevents illness, disability and death from vaccine-preventable diseases including cervical cancer, diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia, polio, rotavirus, diarrhea, rubella, and tetanus.
The Region of the Americas is the second in the world with the worst vaccine coverage. Around 2.7 million children did not receive all their vaccine doses in 2021, leaving them without full protection against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough.
Two countries – Brazil and Mexico – account for more than 50% of children that have never received a vaccine in the region.
Failure to effectively implement and maintain routine vaccination coverage leaves children susceptible to diseases such as polio, tetanus, measles, and diphtheria, according to PAHO.
Vaccines remain the best option of protection in eliminating childhood diseases.
