Few people today have ever seen a child with tetanus, diphtheria, or measles, thanks to the miracle of vaccines. Immunizations prevent 2-3 million deaths every year from these diseases and many others. Vaccines have eradicated smallpox and have almost eradicated polio, a major killer worldwide during the 20th century. Yet according to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 20 million children in the world today are not getting the vaccines they need.
World Immunization Week is celebrated every year in the last week of April. Its theme for 2021 is “Vaccines Bring Us Closer” to emphasize that immunization helps to improve the health of everyone, everywhere throughout life and allows us to safely connect to each other. WHO emphasizes that we now have vaccines to prevent more than 20 life-threatening diseases, helping people of all ages live longer, healthier lives.
Why is it important to everyone to ensure that every child in every country is immunized? Our planet has become a global community, and if all of us are not protected, then we are all at risk.
In Haiti, a nation of more than 11 million, WHO and UNICEF have calculated that only about 60% of children have been adequately vaccinated. Haiti struggles to administer routine vaccines and provide basic health care under stable conditions, but now the COVID-19 pandemic, recent violence and social unrest has increased risk of illness to Haitian children. Haitian physicians have shared that their biggest medical challenges are maternal mortality, infant mortality, and malnutrition, all of which can be prevented or decreased through vaccinations.
Despite challenges resulting from unrest and the pandemic, the staff at Grace Children’s Hospital continue to vaccinate thousands of children every month. This occurs not only in the hospital, but also via community health workers who travel out into impoverished neighborhoods to vaccinate and provide basic healthcare and educational services. GCH has persisted in safely delivering these services to rural areas despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Rony Derius, GCH’s medical director, and Dr Josette Bijou, Haiti’s ICC National Director, state, “When we consider the aggregate statistics for the years 2019 and 2020, we can say that COVID-19 has not had a negative effect on our vaccination program as we vaccinated 18,958 children in 2019 and increased that number to 24,837 children in 2020.” However, in 2021, GCH has struggled to get the necessary vaccines from the government to administer. Fortunately, GCH medical staff have not detected any increase in vaccine-preventable disease occurrences over the past year.
Haiti is among the 10 countries in the Americas that will receive vaccines at no cost through COVAX, an initiative that the US is participating in, to provide COVID-19 inoculations to countries that would otherwise have difficulty getting them. Unfortunately, Haiti has yet to give one dose. The government in Haiti is struggling to keep routine vaccine supplies available. It is more important than ever to ensure routine immunizations are not missed and that there are organizations in place such as GCH to help administer vaccinations efficiently when they are available.
Thank you to the staff at GCH who work to keep us all healthier and safer!