- Vaccine development is considered one of the most important inventions of the modern era.
- Thanks to vaccination, smallpox was eradicated from the world.
- As of 2020, there has been a decrease in the coverage of biologicals worldwide.
Vaccination is one of the most powerful and profitable tools in the history of public health due to the health, economic and social benefits it entails.. This was stated by the Secretary of Health, Jorge Alcocer Varela, at the inauguration of the National Meeting of Heads of the Universal Vaccination Program, at the headquarters of this unit in Acapulco.
Diseases that have been eradicated
He noted that it is crucial for the primary prevention of infectious diseases. In the last century it was achieved eradicate smallpox in America and Europe, and were free of polio.
Before authorities from the Pan American and World Health Organizations (PAHO/WHO), Alcocer Varela stressed that it is crucial to have robust vaccination systems to protect the population from preventable diseases and deaths. In this context, in Mexico, the cultural and organizational background has allowed coverage to increase in recent decades.
Alcocer Varela explained that, worldwide, data for the first four months of 2020 show reduction in diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis coverage (DTP), and a high degree of fluctuation between 2019 and 2020 in measles and poliomyelitis. This situation generates a lack of reliability and strength of the programs. It also implies a greater probability of disease outbreak associated with the increase in unvaccinated or insufficiently protected people.
The Secretary of Health affirmed that greater efforts are required to eliminate the barriers around the acceptance of vaccination. At the same time, make an analysis of the primary data, mainly on coverage rates, articles, research papers, official reports and public policies.
He highlighted that, in order to guarantee the best protection against preventable diseases, the evidence recommends concrete crisis preparedness plans, as well as constant action to achieve and maintain robust and resilient vaccination systems.
Secretary Alcocer Varela indicated that, during the meeting, the people responsible for the programs will evaluate the coverage in preschool age, update the trends of the last decade, the impact in the region of the Americas of the different biologicals and the policies of acceptance.
Universal Vaccination Program
The head of the Undersecretary for Health Prevention and Promotion (SPPS), Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez, agreed that vaccination is one of the most effective and useful strategies to prevent diseases that can spread to any corner of the world.
He stressed that the Universal Vaccination ProgramHe contributes through prevention and collective health to equality and social justice. He said that in the last 40 years vaccination has been the object of attacks and discredit by those who have various idiosyncrasies that are not favorable to collective health.
He pointed out that the wars in the Middle East, the social and military conflicts in Africa and other regions of Asia have led to the reemergence of preventable diseases, due to the “erosion” of the efficacy and effectiveness of vaccination programs.
An example of a re-emergence risk is polio in upstate New York, United States, in a vaccination-averse community, where poliovirus 3 was considered eliminated.
Vaccination against meningeal tuberculosis with the BCG vaccine shows the same behavior because the practice of early immunization is being abandoned with the consequent reactivation of this infection in various regions of the world.
López-Gatell Ramírez explained that the application of vaccines out of time in the target populations can reduce the broad protection capacity, especially when vulnerability is greater in the first year of life.
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