Images from Vaccination Week 2004
El Paso, Texas—National Infant Immunization Week (NIIW) and Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) will be launched in El Paso later this month in an international effort that crosses borders with the message that infants and children should be fully immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established NIIW 10 years ago to educate the public on the importance of timely immunizations for children age two and younger. This year, for the first time, DHHS and CDC have partnered with the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission (USMBHC) and VWA creator the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), to reach millions more about the benefits of immunizations and to promote access to health services in more than 35 countries. Special bi-national border events are being planned on the US-Mexico border in partnership with the USMBHC. It will be the first time the two countries and three states (Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua) collaborate on this effort.
DHHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Health, Rear Admiral Cristina V. Beato, M.D., FAAFP, former associate dean of the UNM School of Medicine, and the first woman to serve as the chief medical officer of the UNM Hospital System, will launch NIIW during a press conference on Wednesday morning, April 28, at the El Paso Region 19 ESC Head Start. This year's NIIW theme is "Vaccination: An Act of Love. Love them. Protect them. Immunize them."
Also participating with Dr. Beato will be Dr. Miquel Escobedo, Regional Public Health Director of the Texas Department of Health (representing Commissioner of Health Eduardo Sanchez); Patricia Montoya, Cabinet Secretary of the New Mexico Department of Health, and Dr. Stephen L. Cochi, Acting Director of the National Immunization Program for CDC. "While immunization coverage among children in our nation is the highest ever recorded for most vaccines, we in the United States must not take our prevention successes for granted," he said. "We are all citizens of the world community. Over a million people a day cross international borders, and a border is not a boundary to disease. It is vital to our nation's health that we work across borders to eliminate disease."
This year, NIIW will be April 24-May 1, 2004. The joint public education effort with DHHS, CDC, USMBHC and PAHO is in conjunction with PAHO's annual VWA, April 24-April 30, 2004.
The Department of Health and Human Services' mission is to protect health and give a special helping hand to those who need assistance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protects people's health and safety by preventing and controlling diseases and injuries; enhances health decisions by providing creditable information on critical health issues; and promotes healthy living through strong partnerships with local, national, and international organizations.
For more information, please visit www.cdc.gov/nip/ or call 1-800-232-0233 (Spanish) or 1-800-232-2522 (English).