World Immunization Week 2016 organised with campaign Close the immunization gap

World Immunization Week 2016 is being organised across the globe between 24 April and 30 April 2016. The week’s campaign is ‘Close the Immunization Gap’ and it seeks to achieve global vaccination targets by 2020.

This will be the second year of the Close the Immunization Gap campaign. The 2016 campaign additionally stresses the need for immunization among adolescents and adults - throughout life.

It also seeks to draw the world’s attention to the critical importance of reaching vulnerable people living in conflict situations or in the wake of emergencies.

During World Immunization Week 2016, WHO will highlight the recent gains in immunization coverage, and outlines further steps needed to meet global vaccination targets by 2020 set in WHO’s Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP).

The week is organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the last week of April with an aim 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 worlds’ most successful and cost-effective health interventions.

WHO Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP)

The WHO Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) - endorsed by the 194 Member States of the World Health Assembly in May 2012 - 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 programmes to meet vaccination coverage targets

• Introduce new and improved vaccines

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

Effect and recent progress of Immunization

• In the recent past, the process of the Immunization has helped the world in dealing with seceral problems like Polio, Ebola and many more.

• It helped in developing vaccines in record time and control disease like Ebola

• 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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