More resources needed to vaccinate 95% of all children.

2002 NOV 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The struggle to vaccinate as many children as possible in the Americas has been one of the priorities of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) since its creation.

This huge effort has yielded results: Because vaccination coverage has reached 84% of all children, the toll from many communicable diseases, especially those that affect children under 5, is being cut.

Now the new goal set by the 26th Pan American Sanitary Conference, a meeting of health ministers from all countries of the Americas held at PAHO, is that countries allocate enough resources to reach vaccination coverage of 95% everywhere.

Polio has already been eradicated from the Americas. And according to the report on Vaccines and Immunization, presented to the health leaders at the conference, "considerable progress is being made in the Americas in reaching the goal of interrupting indigenous measles transmission," with Colombia and Venezuela in mid-2002 being the only countries where endemic measles is still being transmitted. The region continues under threat of importation of the measles virus from other regions where measles is still endemic.

Of the 44 countries and territories of the continent, 40 have already introduced routine vaccination for children against rubella and several have undertaken the accelerated control of rubella and prevention of congenital rubella syndrome, programs that include the vaccination of adults. One of the efforts in this field is to improve investigation and documentation of outbreaks.

With respect to yellow fever, jungle cases continue to occur but a decrease has been observed in cases reported in last 4 years, as a result of intensive vaccination carried out in Bolivia and Brazil. The recommendation to the countries is that yellow fever ...