Categories: Global Health, Immunization
February 24th, 2013 10:51 pm ET -
Scott Dowell, MD, MPH, RADM, USPHS
Ten years ago this month, I was living in Bangkok, Thailand when the world was stunned by the spread of sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). At that time, I was helping to establish the first International Emerging Infections Program with a small group of CDC and Thai colleagues. We saw first-hand the effects of SARS on our patients and our friends, the fear it created in the general public, and the cost to economies throughout Asia. Since then, we have experienced the H5N1 bird flu virus spread, the novel H1N1 influenza pandemic, and numerous other global disease outbreaks.
Global health security aims to protect Americans and others around the world from emerging infectious disease outbreaks – whether natural, intentional, or accidental. Through strategic investments in basic public health systems including effective and adequate laboratories, information systems, trained personnel, and effective response strategies, effective control of epidemics is possible. We have seen it happen.
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Categories: Global Health, Immunization, Kenya, polio
October 23rd, 2012 4:46 pm ET -
Victoria Gammino
The CDC “Nomads Project” was piloted in northern Nigeria in 2011 and brought to scale in 2012 through funding from USAID. The concept is now being piloted by CDC-Kenya in collaboration with CDC’s Global Immunization Division. In addition to bilateral government and NGO partners in Kenya and Nigeria, CDC collaborates with colleagues from WHO, UNICEF, and FAO as part of CDC’s effort to eradicate polio.
Health care systems are designed to meet the needs of the population in the communities where they exist, generally addressing the most urgent health needs, and providing services in a culturally familiar context. But what if that “community” is a mobile one? Many of the things we take for granted — continuity of care or even familiarity with the language and customs among health care providers — can vary from region to region.
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Categories: Global Health, Immunization, World Immunization Week, measles, vaccine
April 27th, 2012 9:08 pm ET -
In celebration of world immunization week, one cannot ignore the great strides China has made to protect over one-fifth of the world’s population from vaccine preventable diseases. The Chinese government has worked closely with CDC, WHO, UNICEF and other partners as it has addressed this challenge head on with new policies, supplemental immunization activities and successes reaching those most in need of care. These steps protect not only China’s population from disease, but also protect the U.S. and the rest of the world from the global spread of infectious, vaccine-preventable health threats.
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Categories: Global Health, Immunization, World Immunization Week, vaccine
April 24th, 2012 7:24 pm ET -
CDC-Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Tabu Collins, a Medical Epidemiologist for the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation (MOPHS). Tabu told me about his journey to becoming an epidemiologist and the public health challenges and successes in Kenya. Every day he sees the power of vaccines, not only to save but also to transform lives, giving children in Kenya an opportunity to grow up healthy, go to school, and live long productive lives.
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Categories: Global Health, Immunization
April 23rd, 2012 4:25 pm ET -
Dr. Kevin De Cock is Director of the CDC Center for Global Health (CGH).
Many voices join in the inspirational stories of global health. Today we begin sharing these stories through a new blog we call “Our Global Voices.” Check in often to hear and share in global health stories from around the world. We invite you to join the conversation on important global health topics. In this blog you’ll interact with CDC’s global health leaders and staff working to improve health and save lives around the world.
We kick off our blog today with the first ever World Immunization Week, observed April 21-28, 2012. Immunization prevents between 2 and 3 million deaths every year worldwide. World Immunization Week is a global event sponsored by the World Health Organization to underscore the importance of immunization in saving lives and to encourage parents to vaccinate their children.
Let me share three reasons why immunization is so important to protecting children and for improving health for all of us.
Immunization works
If ever the term “breakthrough” applies to public health, it applies to immunization. Through this approach we have witnessed extraordinary progress against a host of infectious diseases that caused incalculable suffering and loss throughout most of human history. Today safe and effective vaccinations spare the lives of countless children, and at the same time protect parents and families. Diseases like diphtheria, pertussis, measles, rubella, and polio once swept through communities. Now, most people in developed countries never encounter anyone who’s had any one of these diseases because immunization works so well at preventing or even eradicating them. Some vaccines, like those against human papilloma virus and hepatitis B virus, for example, prevent later complications such as cancer of the liver and cervix, respectively.
Child receiving measles vaccine. Photo credit: C. McNab/Measles Initiative
Immunization is possible
CDC, the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are helping countries assure that no fewer than nine out of ten children in every country receive the three-dose diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP3) vaccine by their first birthday. By 2009 coverage reached 82 percent. In January 2012, India marked its first anniversary without a single case of polio. Successful polio elimination in the world’s second largest country demonstrates, again, that immunization works and immunization is possible.
Immunization is right
The public health tradition upholds the ideal of social justice. We can attribute the virtual elimination of severe illness and death from childhood diseases in the world’s affluent countries to safe, effective vaccines. Immunization works; its safety and affordability make immunization possible everywhere. But just as measles progress has shown to be fragile in Europe when immunization uptake declines, so it is across much of Africa where weak programs lead to renewed outbreaks and deaths. Measles can then affect unvaccinated individuals and communities in the US. Our commitment to social justice obliges us to recognize that regardless of where they live, children and adults need not suffer from diseases we can and should prevent. That is the promise and moral obligation of immunization.
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