United States Joins International Vaccination Effort
The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today announced they will be participating in an unprecedented multi-national Western Hemisphere campaign to promote immunization in all countries of the Americas starting April 25th. HHS and CDC will partner with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission (USMBHC) and more than 35 other nations for Vaccination Week in the Americas, April 24-April 30, 2004. This effort will highlight the need to improve immunization coverage levels and promote access to health services in all countries and coincides with the tenth anniversary of National Infant Immunization Week (NIIW), an annual observance in the United States to promote infant immunization.
To support National Infant Immunization Week (NIIW), April 25 through May 1, 2004, HHS and CDC produced a 30-second Spanish-language Public Service Announcement (PSA) and an English-language PSA entitled, “Vaccination: An Act of Love.” Both PSAs stress the importance of immunizing and protecting children ages two and younger from vaccine-preventable diseases. Each PSA features parents and health care providers promising to vaccinate their children on time, every time, and will provide parents with visual and audio cues to reinforce the recommended childhood vaccination schedule: at birth, 2, 4, 6, 12 and 15 months. The PSAs set to begin airing April 25th will be linked via satellite to major markets throughout the United States and will be broadcast through March 2005.
“Vaccines are among the most successful and cost-effective public health tools available for
preventing disease and death,” said Dr. Stephen L. Cochi, Acting Director of the National
Immunization Program for CDC. “While immunization coverage among children in the United
States is the highest ever recorded for most vaccines, we must not take the prevention successes for granted. We are all citizens of the world community. More than a million people a day cross international borders and a border is not a boundary to disease. It is vital to our nation’s health that we work across borders to eliminate disease.”
Eleven thousand babies are born in the United States daily. Each of them needs to be immunized against 12 diseases before age two. Despite recent gains in childhood immunization coverage, more than 20% of the nation’s two-year-olds do not receive one or more of the recommended immunizations. Often this is the result of parents being unaware of recommended immunizations. Infants and young children are particularly vulnerable to potentially deadly infectious diseases, which is why immunization is critical.
NIIW is an annual observance that emphasizes the need to fully immunize children age two and
younger against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases. This year’s NIIW theme is “Vaccination: An Act
of Love. Love Them. Protect Them. Immunize Them,” and more than 500 NIIW events are taking place across the United States to promote and provide childhood vaccinations.