A big week for vaccines and global health
This week kicks off yet another installment of our holidays-without-greeting-cards series: World Immunization Week. I know what you’re thinking—didn’t we just finish celebrating World Water Day, World TB Day, and International Women’s Day? And the answer of course is yes (the mysterious forces that schedule development days must have a special affinity for March). But we hope you’ve had a chance to catch a breath, because we promise that this week really matters too.
Though we take vaccines for granted in the US and across Europe (perhaps even too much for granted), millions of parents across the developing world are unable to access vaccines for their children, and that has devastating consequences. More than 7.6 million children died before the age of 5 last year, because of largely preventable and treatable causes. But we believe that every child deserves a 5th birthday. One key way to prevent some of these deaths is through simple, cost-effective vaccines to fight diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, and polio.
So, let us be your party planners—here are just a few ways you can help celebrate World Immunization Week:
- Stay tuned to the ONE blog, where we’ll feature posts from some of our partners, detailing their work on vaccines across the spectrum from development to delivery.
- If you’re in the UK you can watch Ewan McGregor’s Cold Chain documentary (Sunday evening 9pm BBC2, previous episode available on iplayer) which follows the epic journeys taken by vaccines to reach remote communities.
- Check out our friends Shot@Life, who are formally launching their new vaccines campaign on Friday
- If you feel inspired (and we hope you will), please share the posts with your networks, and if you’re on twitter, use the hashtag #vaccineswork.
PS: As if World Immunization Week wasn’t enough to get you going, we’ll also be celebrating World Malaria Day on Thursday the 25th (sorry, we’re not in charge of the calendar!). Our bloggers on the ground will provide coverage on Ghanaian malaria programs, and we’ll share some cool stuff ONE and our partners are doing on malaria.
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The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
