Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO Regional Director for Europe, said that the authorities must keep attention high on vaccinations amid the coronavirus emergency as European Immunization Week got underway on Monday. “The COVID-19 situation in the European Region remains very concerning,” Kluge said. “We must not, especially now, let down our guard on immunizations”.
Immunization Week runs until April 26 under the slogan “vaccinating is of vital importance to preventing illness and protecting life”.
The aim is to increase vaccinal coverage by raising awareness of the importance of immunization among parents and care givers, health professionals, politicians and the media. It is supported by national and regional partners, including Unicef and the European Centre for the Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
“Access to vaccines for all has transformed our societies, but it is a public good that must be maintained to be effective, even in difficult times,” said Kluge in a video message released on Monday. “Our overstretched health systems cannot bear any outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. “The health and economic consequences of this pandemic are affecting everyone. “The most vulnerable, who are often left behind by immunization services, should not suffer the added burden of vaccine-preventable diseases”. These include measles which, he said, “affected over 100 000 young and old in Europe last year. “This virus has not gone. It will resurge again if we do not do everything in our power to stop it”.
World Immunization Week
Immunization Week is organized in collaboration with other WHO regional initiatives and with World Immunization Week, which will take place April 24-30 with the famous #vaccineWorks for All hashtag. The campaign will focus on how vaccines – and the people who develop, deliver and receive them – are heroes by working to protect the health of everyone, everywhere.
2020 International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife
WHO has designated 2020, the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. Nurses and midwives work at all levels of health systems and across diverse settings and contexts delivering quality care, leading teams, conducting research, influencing and implementing policy, and educating the next generation of nurses and midwives to save lives and protect health. They also play an important role in informing and advising parents about immunization and in some contexts also in administering vaccinations. Their role is critical to ensuring vaccine safety and high vaccination uptake.
WHO/Europe will take the opportunity of European Immunization Week to also highlight this role and commend nurses and midwives for helping to keep their communities healthy through immunization.
“It is important to keep up vaccinations, including, and especially, during the epidemic,” said Gianni Rezza, the director of the infective-diseases department of Italy’s Higher Health Institute (ISS). “Otherwise we risk adding old problems to a new phenomenon, causing the resurgence of infective diseases that had previously been prevented and controlled by vaccines”.
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Fonte Salute.gov.it News