World Immunization Week (24/04)

World Immunization Week is held in the second half of April at the initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO). Initially, this event was called European Immunization Week and, accordingly, covered only the countries of the Old World, but gradually other continents joined it.

The Week is designed to draw public attention to immunization as one of the main preventive measures to protect humanity from infectious diseases. WHO strongly recommends that families must vaccinate their children against deadly diseases.

According to the organization, immunization can annually prevent 2 to 3 million deaths from diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella. The number of children receiving the vaccine in a timely manner is increasing, including thanks to the efforts of WHO and its announced Immunization Week. Every year, more than 100 million children worldwide are vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. For example, measles vaccination has reduced deaths from the disease worldwide by 84% between 2000 and 2016.

However, currently almost 20 million children have not received the necessary vaccine. Almost 70 percent of them live in 10 countries: India, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Congo, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and South Africa. At the same time, 1.7 million children under five died from diseases that immunization could have prevented. One in five children is not vaccinated: in 2013, approximately 21.8 million infants did not receive life-saving vaccines. The reasons for this are inadequate supplies of vaccines, lack of access to health services and insufficient levels of political and financial support.

In order, if possible, to avoid such cases in the future, WHO conducts various educational events within the framework of Immunization Week, organizes vaccinations for children and adults, and invites representatives of different countries to exchange information and experience. Worldwide cooperation makes it possible to accelerate the rate of immunization of the population and reach the maximum number of people and regions. This has become even more relevant as part of the fight against COVID-19.

Due to the rapid global spread of this infection and high mortality, the development and implementation of a vaccine against COVID‑19 has become a critical task for all countries of the world.

The first coronavirus vaccine, Convidicea, was registered in China in June 2020 to vaccinate military personnel. The first publicly available vaccine, Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V), was registered in Russia in August 2020. And on April 1, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Health registered the world's first nasal vaccine against COVID-19.

By the way, every year Immunization Week is dedicated to a specific topic.

WHO therefore encourages people and organizations working at the international, regional, national and local levels, in the public and private sectors and within civil society to become more active and participate in events during World Immunization Week.



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