Today marks the start of European Immunization Week (EIW), an opportune moment to celebrate the historic achievements in protecting lives and livelihoods made possible by vaccines, and to acknowledge their further potential to protect public health.
The hundreds of thousands of lives saved through COVID-19 vaccination in the WHO European Region are also great cause for celebration. At the same time, there are challenges to maintaining these achievements, which require vigilance and a new path forward.
Progress in the European Region
Thanks to high coverage with the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis-containing (DTP) vaccine, the Region has not experienced any large diphtheria outbreaks since the 1990s.
The Region was declared free of endemic poliomyelitis (polio) in 2002. Several poliovirus importations into the Region were detected in the intervening years, but each time the outbreaks were stopped and the Region maintained its status.