Child Immunization: A World-Wide Public Health Intervention

Click here to view child vaccines required for Infants and Children up to age 6
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/downloads/parent-ver-sch-0-6yrs.pdf

Since before the 15^th century, contagious diseases such as, smallpox, measles, chickenpox, scarlet fever, whooping cough, the bubonic plague, typhus, malaria, influenza and pneumonia have caused millions of human deaths around the world.  Thirty percent of all children in Europe died before reaching their 15^th birthday during the 15^th century and close to ninety percent of the native Indians\ population died of infectious diseases in America during the 17^th century.. Some diseases such as, measles, smallpox, yellow fever and polio however, were practically wiped out in the modern developed countriess by the 20^th century after  Louis Pasteur made the first  vaccination in the lab (online, public) that primed the body’s immune system to resist infectious disease (Berger). Many of these vaccines, considered basic child immunizations, are saving millions of  infants and children's lives up to age 6 in modern developed countries and thanks to increased access to vaccines, in undeveloped countries, more lives are being saved (online, public). 

Globally, the CDC Global Immunization Strategic Framework for example, is committed to working with global partners toward achieving the following six goals in disease, disability and death prevention around the world for 2011-2015:

Goal 1: Control, eliminate, or eradicate targeted vaccine-preventable disease (VPD), disability and death globally

Goal 2: Strengthen capacity and enhance performance of health systems to sustainably deliver routine immunization services

Goal 3: Strengthen VPD health information and surveillance systems to enhance decision-making capacity for immunization programs

Goal 4: Increase the appropriate development, introduction, and use of new and underutilized vaccines—pneumococcal, rotavirus, meningococcal group A conjugate vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine birth dose, rubella, cholera, typhoid, malaria, yellow fever to prevent global diseases

Goal 5: Promote synergies between immunization and other public health interventions to strengthen health systems and contribute to decreased maternal and child mortality

Goal 6: Build and strengthen partnerships that maximize coordination and synergy in meeting immunization goals (online, global).

            In closing, I believe this life-saving, vaccine prevention approach to eliminating world-wide disease, disability and death could have far-reaching benefits as it could spur global partnerships among nations. It could save billions of lives around the world; increase intellectual property that could solve world-wide problems which could ultimately make the world a better place to live; it extends more educational opportunities to others around the world and to the extent that we care for our children, speaks to our respect for humanity.     

References:

Berger, K. S. (2016). The Developing Person through Childhood (7th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers, pp137-169.

Online Websites:
global              retrieved from

http://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/immunization/docs/gid-strat-framewk.pdf 

public              retrieved from

http://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/