This week (April 24-30), the world celebrates World Immunization Week with a theme “Vaccines bring us closer”. The week-long celebration aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Immunization saves millions of lives every year and is widely recognized as one of the most successful health interventions according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO also said that many missed out on vital immunization during adolescence, adulthood, old age and including the almost 20 million children in the world today.

The celebration of this year’s immunization week urges greater engagement around immunization globally to promote the importance of immunization in bringing people together and improving the health and wellbeing of everyone and everywhere throughout life, this according to WHO.

This year’s celebration include campaign among various stakeholders around the world that will unite to increase trust and confidence in vaccines, maintain and increase vaccine acceptance and increase investment in vaccines including routine immunization, and remove barriers to access.

Meanwhile, this year’s campaign is focus on solidarity and trust in the immunization program as a public good that saves lives and protect health, hence “vaccines have brought us closer together and will bring us closer again”.

Over the years vaccines had protected us against disease that threaten lives and prohibit our development. While vaccines are not silver bullet, they will help us progress on path to a world where we can be together again, a report from WHO said.

Moreover, and in this time of health crisis, vaccines themselves continue to advance, bringing us closer to a world free of vaccine-preventable disease including tuberculosis, measles, polio, and other childhood diseases and including COVID 19.

The World Health Organization also urges government and scientist all over the world to invest in resources in including new researches as enabling groundbreaking approaches to vaccine development which according to report is changing the science of immunization, bringing us closer still to a healthier future. # NPC CPDotollo with sources from WHO