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Notice to Readers: National Infant Immunization Week --- April
19--26, 2008
The week of April 19--26, 2008, is National Infant
Immunization Week (NIIW) and Vaccination Week in
the Americas (VWA). Immunization is one of the most effective ways to protect infants and children from potentially
serious diseases. During the week, hundreds of communities throughout the United States are expected to sponsor activities
to emphasize the health benefits of timely vaccination and the importance to parents, health-care providers,
and communities of maintaining high vaccination coverage. One message stressed during this week will be the key role of
the ongoing relationship among parents and their children's health-care providers in vaccination programs. ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø
encourages parents to talk to their health-care providers about vaccinations at any time.
The week's activities provide an opportunity to showcase the success of vaccination in saving the lives and
protecting the health of children. The currently recommended childhood vaccination schedule
(1) includes vaccines that prevent infectious diseases such as measles, polio, whooping cough, some forms of meningitis and pneumonia, and liver
cancer. An analysis of the impact of seven vaccines showed that they would prevent approximately 33,500 deaths and
14 million illnesses per annual birth cohort
(2).
NIIW-VWA events held in collaboration with ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø and state and local health departments will be hosted in
Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Washington. Events held in collaboration with ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø, state and local health departments,
the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), will be
hosted in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border, with kick-off events held in El Paso, Texas, and Sunland Park,
New Mexico. In all locations, events will include education activities for health-care providers, media briefings,
and immunization clinics.
VWA, sponsored by PAHO, targets children and other vulnerable and underserved populations who have
low vaccination coverage rates, in all countries in the Western hemisphere. To support NIIW and VWA events
nationwide, ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø provides annually updated English- and
Spanish-language planning guides, campaign materials, and
public relations tools. These include timely key messages, radio public service announcements, and sample media kits.
These
resources and event listings are available at
. Additional
information about VWA is available at
.
Zhou F, Santoli J, Messonnier ML, et al. Economic evaluation of the 7-vaccine routine childhood immunization schedule in the United
States, 2001. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2005;159:1136--44.
Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.References to non-ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø sites on the Internet are
provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply
endorsement of these organizations or their programs by ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø is not responsible for the content
of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of
the date of publication.
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