The Sunday News
World Immunisation Week — celebrated every year in the last week of April (24 – 30 April) — aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease.
Immunisation saves millions of lives every year and is widely recognised as one of the world’s most successful health interventions.
Yet, there are still nearly 20 million children in the world today who are not getting the vaccines they need, and many miss out on vital vaccines during adolescence, adulthood and into old age.
Using the theme “Vaccines bring us closer”, World Immunisation Week 2021 will urge greater engagement around immunisation globally to promote the importance of vaccination in bringing people together, and improving the health and well-being of everyone, everywhere throughout life.
As part of the 2021 campaign, World Health Organisation (WHO), partners and individuals around the world will unite to increase trust and confidence in vaccines to maintain or increase vaccine acceptance and increase investment in vaccines, including routine immunisation, to remove barriers to access.
While the world focuses on critically important new vaccines to protect against Covid-19, there remains a need to ensure routine vaccinations are not missed.
Many children have not been vaccinated during the global pandemic, leaving them at risk of serious diseases like measles and polio. Rapidly circulating misinformation around the topic of vaccination adds to this threat.
In this context, this year’s campaign will aim to build solidarity and trust in vaccination as a public good that saves lives and protects health.
To this end, WHO will be looking for more partners, bringing people together in support of a lifesaving cause.
“Vaccines have brought us closer, and will bring us closer again.”
For over 200 years, vaccines have protected us against diseases that threaten lives and prohibit our development.
With their help, we can progress without the burden of diseases like smallpox and polio, which cost humanity hundreds of millions of lives.
Whilst vaccines aren’t a silver bullet, they will help us progress on a path to a world where we can be together again.
Vaccines themselves continue to advance, bringing us closer to a world free from the likes of TB and cervical cancer, and ending suffering from childhood diseases like measles. Investment and new research is enabling groundbreaking approaches to vaccine development, which are changing the science of immunisation forever, bringing us closer still to a healthier future. —WHO
