Guyana together with the rest of the Americas is celebrating Vaccination Week of the Americas, April 22nd to the 27th, 2013. This is an unparallel effort led by the countries and territories of the Region to strengthen the Immunization programme by remote communities. Since its inception in 2003, more than 323 million individuals across the spectrum have been vaccinated. The theme for this year is: “Vaccination, a shared Responsibility”.

Guyana has had success with its Immunization Programme over the last decade. This has come about with the strategies used to combat preventable diseases in children. In the 1970’s, the programme started to vaccinate against 6 diseases namely measles, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis and now in 2012 we have an additional antigens against the following diseases, yellow fever, hepatitis B, mumps, heamophilus influenza , rubella, rotavirus and pneumococcal , meningococcal and human papilloma virus. There have been significant progresses towards this end in protecting our public from vaccine preventable diseases. We have moved from a childhood programme over the last decade to include adolescents, and now the entire family. Our motto is”Not any child or family left unvaccinated.”
Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccines was introduced in 1995, in 1998-Hepatitis B to health workers and other high risk groups, in 1999-Yellow Fever, in 2000 and 2001- Pentavalent vaccines, in 2010-Rotavirus, in 2011 Pneumococcal vaccines. We have also introduced prevention measures to fight against the cervical cancer in women that is the Human Papilloma Virus Vaccines for young girls.
Active Surveillance is maintained for poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, and rubella, tetanus including neonatal and adult, diphtheria, whooping cough (pertussis), tuberculosis and yellow fever and all other diseases. We are constantly monitoring the signs and symptoms of any vaccine preventable disease. Testing and confirmation for these vaccine preventable diseases is also being done in collaboration with PAHO/WHO.
Towards, this end, there has been significant achievement in the EPI programme in Guyana. Last reported case of whooping cough in 2002, since 1962, Guyana has maintained a polio free status, since 1991, no reported case of Measles and the last case of yellow fever was in 1968.
Vaccination coverage has always been maintained at over 90 % in the antigens under one year of age over the last five years at the national level.  We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our health workers and UN partners for a work well done.
Even though the national coverage is over 90% , there are still regional areas that we must target to ensure that the coverage is maintained.  This illustrates the government’s commitment to ensure that the children are protected against the vulnerable diseases and reduce childhood mortality.
We would like to take this opportunity during Vaccination Week of the Americas 2013 to encourage the parents and guardians to be vaccinated against all vaccine preventable diseases. Please visit the health center near you for more information.