Namibia marks World Immunisation Week

This week is World Immunisation Week, with this year celebrating 50 years of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation. The World Health Organisation director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says they are calling on world leaders to advocate, support, and fund vaccines and immunisation programmes.

The week is marked under the theme of ‘Humanly Possible’. Here is the Minister of Health and Social Services Dr. Kalumbi Shangula for his message.

Vaccines Save Lives and Protect Health

As we honor vaccines as humanity’s greatest achievement, we look toward the future of a world free of vaccine-preventable diseases.   

• Vaccines save millions of lives each year. 
• Vaccines are one of the cheapest and most effective public health interventions that exist. 
• Vaccines make it humanly possible to eradicate diseases. 

Every child deserves access to lifesaving vaccines that can protect them against illness, disability, and death. 

Urgent Need to Catch Up on Vaccines

In every region of the world, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles, polio, and cholera are rising.  

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, 67 million children missed vaccines they needed to protect them from disabling and deadly diseases.   
• In 2022, 20.5 million children missed at least one routine vaccine, and 14 million received no vaccines at all.  
• In 2022, nearly 33 million children were left dangerously susceptible to the growing measles threat. An estimated 136,000 people, mostly children, died of measles.