Saltillo United Nations Simulation

History about the topic:

Despite the availability of effective vaccines against common childhood infections a significant number of children under five years of age continue to die from communicable diseases. The causes of these deaths includes: viral, bacterial, parasitic, and vector-borne diseases.

Immunization is one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions and prevents between 2 and 3 million deaths every year.  The benefits of immunization are increasingly being extended to adolescents and adults, providing protection against life-threatening diseases such as influenza, meningitis, and cancers. It is estimated that 22 million infants are not fully immunized with routine vaccines, and more than 1.5 million children under 5 die from diseases that could be prevented by existing vaccines.

Vaccines have proven to be the most cost effective public health tool in the fight against infectious diseases. Development of new vaccines has the potential to contribute to better immunization programs and to reduce further childhood mortality.

Researches in scientific knowledge of new technologies have accelerated vaccine development and resulted in the testing of new vaccines against common infectious diseases. More clinical trials are increasingly being planned for Africa to evaluate efficacy and safety of some vaccines.

WHO has approved some programs such as:

 -The Contribution of Research & Development of new vaccines to the Immunization and Vaccine Development Program which functions are:

• Assisting countries to prioritize communicable diseases.

• Building capacity for scientifically valid and acceptable clinical trials of vaccines in Africa.

• Providing guidelines for vaccines in Africa.

• Sustaining associations for vaccine research and development and accelerate the introduction of new vaccines in Africa.

-PATH (Program for Appropriate Technology in Health)

PATH is an international, nonprofit global health organization which purpose is to work on a wide array of helping with global health issues in the areas of health technologies, vaccines and immunization.

World Health Organization is also working on the immunization; many countries have received help such as the following:

•  African Region: Pneumonia and diarrhea control in Malawi

•  Region of the Americas: New vaccine protects Haitian children from five diseases

• Eastern Mediterranean Region: Strengthening routine immunization in Sudan

• European Region: Vaccinating Roma children in Bulgaria

• South-East Asia Region: Improving measles control in India

•  Western Pacific Region: Eliminating measles and strengthening health services in Cambodia

Facts to know:

• - Inadequate access to vaccines in low and middle income countries results in more than two million deaths each year

• -Annually, more than 100 million children receive vaccinations that protect them from diseases like polio, measles, and hepatitis B. Still, 24 million children go without these basic vaccinations

• -Each year, almost 500,000 children die from diarrheal disease caused by rotavirus and another two million are hospitalized.

• -Globally, around 54.5 million people die each year. 12% of these deaths occur in children under the age of 5

• -Most of these deaths in children occur in low and middle developed countries.

       - $US 1 billion minimum required annually to reach children still at risk

Individual Perspectives

• India

India is building on its polio eradication campaign experience to ensure more children get vaccinated against measles. It is now more than two years since a child has been infected with polio in India, once considered the global epicenter of the disease. Intense, six-day polio vaccination campaigns have been run several times a year in India since 1996. During each campaign, 2.3 million vaccinators go door-to-door, visiting 191 million homes to vaccinate 172 million children a year. The country’s polio eradication campaign, led by the Government of India, with the World Health Organization, has been one of the biggest, and most complex implemented vaccination campaigns in human history. “India is a good example of a large and diverse country with many health systems challenges,” says Dr Hamid Jafari, WHO’s Director of Polio Operations and Research. “This program demonstrates the impact that can be achieved by linking efforts to eradicate polio with those to improve routine immunization against a disease such as measles.”

• Sudan

Sudan has reached more than 90% of children with routine immunization thanks to a committed government plan and partner support. Sudan’s Expanded Program of Immunization has doubled the number of temporary vaccination clinics from around 2000 to more than 4000. The program owes its success to strong commitment from the government. Other factors include a concerted effort to train health workers to fill the large human resources and the establishment of strong incentives to encourage staff retention. WHO, UNICEF and the GAVI Alliance have all provided technical or financial support.

• Haiti

Haiti has recently introduced the pentavalent vaccine, a combination vaccine designed to protect children from five dangerous diseases. The “five-in-one” pentavalent vaccine protects children from diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza which causes pneumonia and meningitis. Haiti is among the countries in the Americas with highest child mortality rates. The main causes are acute respiratory infections like pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, anemia and chronic malnutrition. WHO recruited and trained a team of 12 Haitian doctors, educated in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, to in turn train health workers to use the pentavalent vaccine throughout the Haiti’s ten departments.

Bibliography

http://www.who.int/features/2013/haiti_pentavalent_vaccine/en/index.html Haiti

http://www.who.int/features/immunization/en/index.html

http://www.who.int/topics/vaccines/en/

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/japanese_encephalitis_20131009/en/index.html Japan

http://www.who.int/campaigns/immunization-week/2013/features/en/index.html

http://sites.path.org/vaccineaccessanddelivery/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(global_health_organization)

http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/en/

http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7647/750

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2009/state_immunizaton_20091021/en/

http://www.afro.who.int/en/clusters-a-programmes/vrg.html