Vaccination Week in the Americas April 20 -27, 2019

This year Dominica joins the rest of the Region of the Americas in celebrating the 17th of Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) under the theme, “Protect your community. Do your part. #GetVax”

This year special focus will be placed on putting an end to the current measles outbreaks and prevent future outbreaks.
Currently, the Region of the Americas is facing measles outbreaks, even though in 2016 it had declared itself free of the disease. Since 2017 the Region has suffered from measles transmission in 10 countries with more than 17,000 cases. VWA 2019 provides a great opportunity for all the countries of the Region to do their part to end the current measles outbreaks, protect their communities, and permanently eliminate the measles virus in the Americas.
VWA is also an opportunity to highlight the importance of maintaining the achievements obtained in the Region through vaccination. This includes the elimination of six vaccine-preventable diseases: smallpox (1971); polio (1994); rubella and congenital rubella syndrome (2015); measles (2016); and neonatal tetanus (2017).
Thirty-three Member States in the Americas maintain their measles elimination status. However, endemic transmission of the virus has been re-established in Venezuela in July 2018 and in Brazil in February 2019.
A country is no longer considered to be measles-free when the same type of virus has been circulating for more than 12 continuous months.
The fact that a disease has been declared as eliminated does not mean that it no longer exists; it simply means that it does not circulate in a specific area.
Measles circulation in other regions of the world represents an ongoing threat to the Americas, because imported cases can reintroduce the virus among unvaccinated individuals. This is what happened in Venezuela in July 2017, where the outbreak was due to a virus genotype D8 that was originally reported in Asia and later in Europe. This virus strain later spread from Venezuela to Brazil.

Dominica plans to rapidly increase vaccination coverage to reach more than 95% of children age 5 years and under to improve coverage by:

Updating or completing childhood vaccination schedules.
Prioritizing communities and districts reporting low coverage, with 2 doses of the vaccine;
Ensuring vaccination of health care and other front line workers and
Continuation of surveillance at all levels of the service for fever and rash illnesses.