World Immunization Week 2019 celebrated in Zahedan University of Medical Sciences

Report from: ZAUMS Communicable Diseases Control Department

Published on: 5 May 2019

World Immunization Week is a global public health campaign to raise awareness, increase rates of immunization, and promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against vaccine-preventable diseases around the world. It takes place each year during last week of April. Immunization saves millions of lives every year and is widely recognized as one of the worlds most successful and cost-effective health interventions. The theme of this year’s campaign was "Vaccines work: We are protected together". Immunization is one of the most successful and cost-effective of all global public health interventions, which saves the lives of 2 to 3 million people every year (1).

Every day, people around the world are doing their part to keep us safe through vaccines, working in some of the most difficult conditions. Health care workers and community health volunteers (CHVs), who combat vaccine-preventable disease in their communities every day, have an immediate impact on communicable and life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases prevention and control. These frontline workers are "Vaccine Heroes". In this World Immunization Week, we had the opportunity to thank the "Vaccine Heroes" in Zahedan University of Medical Sciences who work tirelessly to vaccinate, and to ensure that we double down on our efforts to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases.

As part of World Immunization Week 2019, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences also held a workshop on Effective Vaccine Management (EVM). The Effective Vaccine Management (EVM) initiative was launched by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2010 to raise global and national attention to immunization supply chain performance metrics and identify areas where supply chain improvements might positively impact immunization and health outcomes (2). The Effective Vaccine Management (EVM) initiative provides materials and tools needed to monitor and assess vaccine supply chains and help countries to improve their supply chain performance (2).