Mexico´s Ministry of Health started the 15th Americas Vaccination Week, where Dr. Jose Narro Robles emphasized that the application of doses is one of the most effective ways to prevent diseases, premature deaths and to eradicate or control diseases.

Therefore, endorsed the commitment of the Health Sector to continue the progress in the search for better living standards of the population.

During the commemorative ceremony, where the biological Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) was applied to an 11-year-old girl and pneumococcal to an older adult, Narro Robles emphasized that health care is the greater social equalizer, one of which allows to avoid inequality in this matter, social, economic and educational.

In the central courtyard of the dependency, where the celebration took place, the Minister of Health said that for the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto this sector and the vaccination strategy are priorities.

In the four and a half years of the current administration, he explained, more than 330 million doses have been applied to children, adolescents, youths and adults, and invested over 25 billion pesos only in the purchase of biologicals.

He argued that a key part of public health is the achievements of Mexico's health programs and the use of drinking water. For decades in the Region of the Americas and especially in this country since the 1970s actions were taken that, later, translated into what are now the national health weeks.

With these actions, he added, it has been achieved that Mexican children are equal and that they are exercised and have safeguarded the rights and opportunities that correspond to them.

Dr. Jose Narro explained that the consistency with this true public policy sustained over decades, have allowed the eradication of diseases such as smallpox. In Mexico the last recorded case was in 1951; Polio was eliminated since 1990; Measles in 1996, rubella in 2008, and congenital rubella syndrome in 2010.

Tetanus, meningeal tuberculosis, whooping cough and diphtheria, among others, are kept under control.

He acknowledged the work and commitment of health workers, which makes possible to reach these achievements. In addition, the trust of society to fight diseases through vaccination.

Representatives of the Mexican institutes of Social Security and Social Security and Social Service of the State Workers, the Armed Forces, health secretaries of the states and professionals in the field, the representative in Mexico of PAHO / WHO, Dr. Gerry Eijkemans noted that vaccination and the elimination of diseases represent two of the most important public health contributions to the development of a healthier, equitable and just society.

During this week, he said, intense work will be done by the countries of the Americas Region and the rest of the world to bring vaccines to the most vulnerable and remote populations.

There, the director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Dr. Carissa Etienne, pointed out that over 15 years, through vaccination weeks in the Americas Region, more than 640 million people have been vaccinated against diseases such as polio, measles, whooping cough, tetanus, influenza and HPV. This year more than 60 million doses will be applied.

Vaccination, she said, allows nations to reduce health care expenditures to the population for diseases prevented by this action.

She recalled that this year the World Health Organization's Expanded Program on Immunization (PAI) is celebrating its 40th anniversary and has made possible to reach important achievements in public health for the Americas Region, such as the elimination of smallpox, Polio, measles and congenital rubella syndrome.

"Success brings obligations and that means we must ensure and maintain the high rates of vaccination coverage, not only at the national level but at the local level, to prevent the return of diseases that we have eliminated or reduced," she concluded.

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