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CLARK COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT

World Immunization Week – celebrated and sponsored by the World Health Organization every year in the last week of April – aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. Immunizations save millions of lives every year and are widely recognized as one of the world’s most successful health interventions. Yet there are still nearly 20 million children in the world today who are not getting the vaccines they need, and many miss out on vital vaccines during adolescence, adulthood and into old age.

This year’s theme, “Vaccines bring us closer,” highlights how all vaccines or immunizations allow people to be together by preventing contagious illness throughout all stages of 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. Vaccines continue to advance, bringing us closer to a world free from the likes of hepatitis A and B, cervical cancer, and ending suffering from childhood disease such as measles. When higher numbers of the population are vaccinated, everyone benefits through what is called herd immunity. This term refers to when large numbers of the population are vaccinated, the disease incident rate drops significantly, benefiting those who cannot be vaccinated due to age or other contraindications.

During the continuing global pandemic of COVID-19, vaccines are an important tool in helping society get to a new normal by decreasing the incidence of infection, serious illness and death. Also, this year’s theme spotlights the need for humans to be connected and not isolated.

The Clark County Health Department encourages everyone who can be vaccinated to get vaccinated against COVID-19. While the world focuses on these vaccine efforts, 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 such measles and polio. Rapidly circulating misinformation around the topic of vaccination adds to this threat.

Clark County Health Department provides vaccines for uninsured or underinsured children and children with Medicaid up through age 19. Please contact us with any questions you may have about specific immunizations or immunizations in general.

We are also continuing to provide COVD-19 vaccine to adults 18 years and older as our inventory allows. Call us at 859-744-4482. You can also like us on FACEBOOK and follow us on Twitter. Join us as we celebrate life-saving immunization programs and look forward to a world without any of these preventable diseases.