With all eyes on vaccines amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, World Immunization Week (WIW) from April 24-30 offers a timely opportunity to highlight the importance of immunization. To end the pandemic, the majority of the world needs to be immune to COVID-19 and the safest way to achieve this is through a vaccine.
WIW is celebrated every year during the last week of April to promote vaccines to protect people of all ages from vaccine-preventable diseases.
This year's theme, Vaccines Bring Us Closer (#VaccinesWork) aims to unify voices around the story of how vaccines bring us closer to a world where no one suffers or dies from a vaccine-preventable disease. Thanks to vaccines, billions of people today live healthy lives protected from more than 20 diseases including pneumonia, cervical cancer, and Ebola. In the past century, vaccines have brought us closer to ending polio and have helped us eradicate smallpox. In just the last 30 years, child deaths have decreased by over 50% thanks in large part to vaccines.
Still, there are nearly 20 million children in the world today who are not getting the basic vaccines they need. Increasing access to vaccines everywhere is the best way to protect against preventable diseases from birth into old age.
This WIW, make sure to take action with Results Canada. As part of this month’s #StopTheDeadlyDivide campaign, we encourage you to use WIW as a hook to write a letter to the editor (LTE) about why Canada must support the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) waiver currently tabled at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
You can also take to social media by posting the text below:
This WIW, let’s keep in mind that the #COVID-19 pandemic doesn't end with a vaccine. It ends when vaccines reach everyone, everywhere. In our interconnected world, equitable access to #COVID-19 vaccines are a must to ensure that no one is left behind. #VaccinesWork #StopTheDeadlyDivide @Canada4results
To learn more and to access educational resources, check out World Immunization Week 2021.
