WHO South-East Asia has called upon to strengthen the vaccination drive across the countries in the region. This is to avert 2 to 3 million infant deaths globally from deadly diseases such as diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, pertussis, polio and tetanus.

On the occasion of the World Immunization Week held between April 24 and 30, 2015,  the WHO South East Asia observed that vaccines save lives, but 1 in 5 children, an estimated 21.8 million infants worldwide still miss out on basic vaccines. Of them, 9 million infants, more than one-third, live in WHO’s South-East Asia Region.

This year, the World Immunization Week focuses on closing the immunization gap and reaching equity in immunization levels with renewed efforts.

Of the 40 million children born in the region every year, only about 75 per cent get all three doses of diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccines. Children miss out on measles vaccines. In 2013 about 26 per cent of the global measles deaths, almost 38 000, occurred in countries in the South-East Asia Region, 27 500 in India alone.

“These grim statistics underscore the need to intensify efforts to protect children with lifesaving vaccines.  We must close these immunization gaps. We must emulate lessons learnt from major public health wins, especially the polio eradication programme, to reach the unreached – the under served children living in remote areas and in deprived urban and other settings to ensure equity with routine immunization vaccines, said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director WHO South-East Asia Region.

 To increase and sustain vaccination coverage, we need to strengthen health systems and link vaccine delivery to other health interventions. Addressing the resource crunch, competing health priorities, poor management of health systems, inadequate monitoring and supervision and low awareness level among parents is critical to making vaccination available to all children.

Vaccination is a known cost-effective health intervention. Increasing vaccination coverage will accelerate control of vaccine preventable diseases and reduce death and diseases among children.

With concerted efforts, WHO South-East Asia aims at maternal and neonatal tetanus elimination this year, measles elimination and rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (CRS) control by 2020; sustaining the victory over polio until the disease is eradicated globally; increasing immunization coverage to > 90 per cent at the national level and to > 80 per cent at the district level with the three doses of diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus vaccines.