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In The News

Posted April 24, 2016

 

Randolph Health Medical Group Celebrates World Immunization Week – April 24-30

 

World Immunization Week – celebrated in the last week of April – aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. Immunization saves millions of lives and is widely recognized as one of the world’s most successful and cost-effective health interventions.

Without vaccines, global eradication of smallpox and elimination of poliomyelitis and measles from large parts of the world would have been impossible. New, improved vaccines are now available to protect not just children, but also adolescents and adults. Yet many children and adults are missing out every year. A lack of awareness about the value of vaccination is a key reason why some adults consciously choose not to get vaccinated themselves or to vaccinate their children.

For this year's World Immunization Week campaign, we encourage people around the world to find out what vaccines they should have, check their vaccination status, and get the vaccines they need.

Are you up-to-date?

Click on the links below for online and printable versions of Immunization Schedules:

Removing barriers to immunization

The World Health Organization Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) has the ambitious goal of reaching universal coverage with vaccines worldwide by 2020. The GVAP aims to:
 

  • accelerate control of vaccine-preventable diseases with polio eradication as the first milestone and step up efforts to eliminate measles, rubella and maternal and neonatal tetanus and other diseases

  • strengthen national routine immunization programs to meet vaccination coverage targets

  • introduce new and improved vaccines

  • spur research and development for the next generation of vaccines and technologies


Recent progress

There have been exciting developments over the past year:
 

  • the target for introduction of new or under-utilized vaccines is on track worldwide, with 86 low- and middle-income countries introducing 128 vaccines since 2010

  • promising candidate vaccines against Ebola were developed and tested in record time

  • Africa has not had a case of wild poliovirus since August 2014 – an enormous achievement that brings the region closer than ever to being certified polio-free

  • India has been declared free of maternal and neonatal tetanus, demonstrating disease elimination is possible even in challenging circumstances

  • the Americas became the first region to eliminate rubella and congenital rubella syndrome

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