Vaccines have brought us closer, and will bring us closer again.
Using the theme ‘Vaccines bring us closer’, World Immunisation Week 2021 will urge greater engagement around immunisation globally to promote the importance of vaccination in bringing people together, and improving the health and well-being of everyone, everywhere throughout life.
For over 200 years, vaccines have protected us against diseases that threaten lives and prohibit our development. With their help, we can progress without the burden of diseases like smallpox and polio, which cost humanity hundreds of millions of lives
Whilst vaccines aren’t a silver bullet, they will help us progress on a path to a world where we can be together again.
Vaccines themselves continue to advance, bringing us closer to a world free from the likes of TB and cervical cancer, and ending suffering from childhood diseases like measles.
Investment and new research is enabling groundbreaking approaches to vaccine development, which are changing the science of immunization forever, bringing us closer still to a healthier future.
While the world focuses on critically important new vaccines to protect against COVID-19, there remains a need to ensure routine vaccinations are not missed. Many children have not been vaccinated during the global pandemic, leaving them at risk of serious diseases like measles and polio. Rapidly circulating misinformation around the topic of vaccination adds to this threat.
For a schedule of when children should be vaccinated – See the National Immunisation Program Schedule.
In this context, this year’s campaign will aim to build solidarity and trust in vaccination as a public good that saves lives and protects health.
To find out what vaccinations you have had in the past – See the Australian Immunisation Register.
A critical part of the solution to the pandemic, but not alone
Vaccines are a critical new tool in the battle against COVID-19. Working as quickly as they can, scientists from across the world are collaborating and innovating to bring us tests, treatments and vaccines that will collectively save lives and end this pandemic.