World Immunization Week

World Immunization Week

World Immunization Week is celebrated in the last week of April. This week aims to highlight the collective action needed to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases. Under the theme of ‘The Big Catch-Up’, WHO is working with partners to accelerate rapid progress in countries to get back on track to ensure more people, particularly children, are protected from preventable diseases.

2023 was the global opportunity to catch-up on lost progress in essential immunizations due to Covid. Goals were to reach the millions of children who missed out on vaccines. In addition, other goals were to restore essential immunization coverage to at least 2019 levels. Lastly, the goal was to strengthen primary health care to deliver immunizations and build lasting protection in communities and countries.

The awareness color for immunizations is teal or blue. Wear a teal or blue awareness ribbon, enamel pin or wristband bracelet to raise awareness about immunizations.

The Goal of World Immunization Week

The goal of World Immunization Week is to protect more children, adults, and their communities from vaccine-preventable diseases, allowing them to live happier, healthier lives.

Immunization is a global health and development success story, saving millions of lives every year. Vaccines reduce risks of getting a disease by working with the body’s natural defenses to build protection. When you get a vaccine, your immune system responds.

We now have vaccines to prevent more than 20 life-threatening diseases, helping people of all ages live longer, healthier lives. Immunization currently prevents 3.5-5 million deaths every year from diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, influenza, and measles.

A Key Component of Primary Health Care

Immunization is a key component of primary health care and an indisputable human right. It’s also one of the best health investments money can buy. Vaccines are also critical to the prevention and control of infectious disease outbreaks. They underpin global health security and will be a vital tool in the battle against antimicrobial resistance.

The Covid-19 pandemic, associated disruptions, and Covid-19 vaccination efforts strained health systems in 2020 and 2021, resulting in dramatic setbacks. However, from a global perspective, recovery is on the horizon –  in 2022 diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DTP) immunization coverage, albeit unevenly between countries, has almost recovered to 2019 levels.

Measles, because of its high transmissibility, acts as a “canary in the coal mine,” quickly exposing any immunity gaps in the population. Still, 22 million children missed their routine first dose of measles vaccine in 2022, compared to 19 million in 2019.

Vaccines train your immune system to create antibodies, just as it does when it’s exposed to a disease. However, because vaccines contain only killed or weakened forms of germs like viruses or bacteria, they do not cause the disease or put you at risk of its complications.

Immunization Agenda 2030

IA2030 sets an ambitious, overarching global vision and strategy for vaccines and immunizations for the decade 2021–2030. It was co-created with thousands of contributions from countries and organizations around the world. It draws on lessons from the past decade and acknowledges continuing and new challenges posed by infectious diseases (e.g. Ebola, COVID-19).

The strategy has been designed to respond to the interests of every country and intends to inspire and align the activities of community, national, regional and global stakeholders towards achieving a world where everyone, everywhere fully benefits from vaccines for good health and well-being. IA2030 is operationalized through regional and national strategies and is a mechanism to ensure ownership and accountability. It is a monitoring and evaluation framework to guide country implementation.