Vaccination Week in the Americas: An Opportunity to Integrate Other Health Services With Immunization

Abstract

Vaccination Week in the Americas (VWA) is an initiative of the countries and territories of the Americas that works to advance equity and access to vaccination. The initiative focuses on reaching populations with limited access to regular health services and promotes solidarity among countries. As the Expanded Program on Immunization is one of the world’s best-established health programs, integrating other interventions with immunization services has been highly promoted. Using data available from the Pan American Health Organization, we explored the extent of integration of other interventions with immunization in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries as part of VWA. At least 14 countries or territories have integrated other interventions with immunization during VWA. The most common integrated intervention is vitamin A supplementation, followed by deworming. However, a variety of other interventions have been integrated, such as educational activities, supplementation with vitamins and minerals, and provision of health services. Data on coverage of integrated interventions are limited. Integration of other interventions with immunization in LAC countries is widespread, and its impact and lessons learned merit further examination.

Use of measles supplemental immunization activities (SIAs) as a delivery platform for other maternal and child health interventions: Opportunities and challenges

“…While conscious of the need for careful policy design [8] and consideration of health system issues [14] to ensure success of the strategy, respondents felt that the benefits exceeded the risks. These results cohere with a growing international trend to add interventions to the SIA platform [2,8,15].…”

Integrating nutrition into health systems: What the evidence advocates

“…Search results: We identified 13,843 titles in our search and after abstract and full‐text screening and cross referencing; we included 45 papers that met the inclusion criteria. Studies ranged from randomized, controlled trials to qualitative studies (Aguayo et al, ; Amadi et al, ; Anand, Luman, & O'Connor, ; Arifeen et al, ; Armstrong et al, ; Baqui et al, ; Berti, Mildon, Siekmans, Main, & MacDonald, ; Bhandari, Mazumder, Taneja, Sommerfelt, & Strand, ; Brits et al, ; Bryce et al, ; Ching, Birmingham, Goodman, Sutter, & Loevinsohn, ; Deconinck et al, ; Doherty et al, ; El Arifeen et al, ; Fagerli et al, ; Fernandez‐Rao et al, ; Friedman & WoLFheim, ; Gowani, Yousafzai, Armstrong, & Bhutta, ; Grellety et al, ; Grossmann et al, ; Guyon et al, ; Hodges et al, ; Klemm, Villate, Tuazon‐Lopez, & Ramos, ; Kouam et al, ; Masanja et al, ; Mazumder et al, ; Miller et al, ; Nguyen et al, ; Palmer, Diaz, Noordam, & Dalmiya, ; Parikh et al, ; Puett, Alderman, Sadler, & Coates, ; Puett, Coates, Alderman, & Sadler, ; Rasanathan et al, ; Ropero‐Álvarez, Kurtis, Danovaro‐Holliday, Ruiz‐Matus, & Tambini, ; Sadler, Puett, Mothabbir, & Myatt, ; Saiyed & Seshadri, ; Schellenberg et al, ; Singh et al, ; Sivanesan, Kumar, Kulkarni, Kamath, & Shetty, ; Tadesse et al, ; Tandon, ; Taneja et al, ; Yousafzai, Rasheed, Rizvi, Armstrong, & Bhutta, ). Data S1, Figure S1 depicts the search flow diagram, and the quality of the included studies are described in Data S1, Figure S2.…”

Vaccination Week in the Americas, 2011: an opportunity to assess the routine vaccination program in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

“…The initiative’s objectives include highlighting the work of national immunization programs and increasing access to vaccination services, particularly for hard-to-reach, high-risk groups. Specific campaigns undertaken as part of VWA are flexible and chosen by countries based on their public health priorities [ 5 ]. VWA’s success has inspired establishment of similar initiatives in other regions, leading to the 2012 launch of World Immunization Week, endorsed by the World Health Assembly [ 6 ].…”