WASHINGTON (OPS). With the goal of accelerating vaccination against COVID-19 and closing coverage gaps against other vaccine-preventable diseases, countries and territories of the Americas plan to immunize around 140 million people within the framework of Vaccination Week in the Americas. the initiative promoted by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary.
The theme of this year’s Week, which takes place from April 23 to 30, is “Are you protected? Get all your vaccines”, and appeals to the entire population to review their vaccination schedules and get vaccinated to be fully protected.
“This Vaccination Week is an opportunity to improve vaccination rates against polio, measles, rubella, diphtheria, and other preventable diseases that have fallen in the last ten years,” said PAHO Director Carissa F. Etienne.
“Vaccines work and in the last 20 years they have prevented millions from getting sick, being hospitalized and even dying, so it is necessary to extend their benefits to all people,” he said.
In two years of the pandemic, the attention paid to controlling COVID-19, with professionals and health systems overwhelmed, has set back almost three decades of progress in the fight against polio and measles in the region.
In 2020, more than 2.7 million children in the Americas were unvaccinated or with incomplete schedules, making them susceptible to diseases such as measles, polio, and diphtheria, the first two eliminated from the region.
While the coverage rate with the three doses of the polio vaccine stood at 82% in 2020 – the lowest since 1994-, the regional coverage rate against measles, mumps and rubella (with the triple vaccine viral SRP1) was 87%, six percentage points less than the 93% registered in 2016.
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