Photo: © UNICEF
Good news to start 2012: UNICEF is preparing ambitious plans to update, strengthen and vastly expand its global vaccination programme. Experts are expecting to win the battle against polio very soon. this would be a remarkable milestone in children's health worldwide but more than that, it is an opportunity to improve UNICEF's immunization programmes. In 2010, UNICEF supplied vaccines worth 757 million USD. Now, the organization plans to triple its capacity over the next 5 years.
"We need to strengthen what we do, so that the role that we and governments play in delivering immunization is much more solid", Jos Vandelaer, UNICEF Chief of Immunization, said. Polio will be the biggest concern since the world is very close to witness the eradication of the virus. Constant vigilance will be needed and immunization campaigns will continue. UNICEF also wants to strengthen outdated public health systems: structures that disseminate vaccines haven't been updated significantly in decades and it's time to improve them in order to enable more effective administration of immunizations to the most marginalized people. "There are 20 per cent of children every year who don’t get immunized, they are usually among the poorest, the more marginalized", Jos Vandelaer said. "We can use this know-how to bring the vaccines to those children".
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