A mother of four and restaurant owner from Dabola, in central
Several health workers came to visit her to try and convince her to vaccinate her newborn, Madiou, but she still felt uneasy.
That was until she met Bérété, a
Newly informed and confident, Diaraye agreed for Bérété to take baby Madiou for his first immunizations. Since then, Diaraye has become a champion for vaccination within her community.
"My advice to mothers is to agree to their children getting vaccinated. For me, since the
A global story, playing out locally, house-by-house
Diaraya's story is far from unique. People around the world often don't have access to life-saving vaccines, do not have all the facts about how they work, or don't know who they can trust to give them accurate and unbiased information.
This is why trusted community organizations, like
This year, World Immunization Week revolves around the theme of Humanly Possible, also the name of a global campaign to celebrate and build on the achievements made in protecting people from vaccines since the latter half of the 20th century.
For its part, the IFRC is redoubling efforts to bring awareness and vaccines to people in vulnerable situations --- from conflict to outbreaks, forced migration or natural disaster --- or who for whatever reason lack access to immunization services.
The approach varies to meet the specific situation of each county and they span the globe, from the efforts of the National Societies of Guinea,Afghanistan,Pakistan, and
Philippine
As of
The PRCS' measles outbreak response is being done in collaboration with the ICRC, which also has a long time presence in the
The PRCS has been part of other polio and measles outbreak responses and plans to expand this current operation by deploying vaccination teams from other chapters, with the help of resources from the IFRC and the
Using innovation to improve access to immunization in
In
This system uses a biometric authentication system, using face and iris recognition technology while still ensuring data privacy, to accurately register and verify identities, with up to 99 per cent accuracy.
This allows for people without official documentation to still receive vaccines and enables a way to keep a record of the vaccinations received and is especially useful in supporting public immunization campaigns to ensure everyone can be vaccinated.
Using this technology, TRCS reached 20,000 adolescent girls, specifically ethnic minorities, migrants, and refugees between the age of 12-15 years old, living in temporary shelters across the country with 40,000 doses ofHuman Papillomavirus (HPV)vaccine. This helped to significantly decrease their chances of getting HPV, a major, but vaccine-preventable cause of cervical cancer.
If this can be expanded, more displaced persons and undocumented residents can be assured to have access to their next essential vaccine, such as a booster shot, as well as a better quality of life in
Local presence, ready to prevent and respond
Over the long term, immunization campaigns are only fully effective if they are of high quality and result in high coverage. The challenge now is to improve and strengthen routine immunisation, to better prevents future outbreaks, while ensuring there is capacity in place to respond quickly and engage communities, if and when outbreaks occur.
This is why the work of National Societies in
Back in
"We keep supporting her, because every time I send her child to hospital to be vaccinated, I never forget to follow up," explains Bérété. "Every morning I come to see her to check on the child. Because what’s really important, you can’t just vaccinate a child and leave without following up. If she can see that you are there for her at all times, she will have the courage."
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