mw447c.jpg Matt Wuerker

Toward an Immunized World

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For a child, receiving a vaccine takes just a moment (and perhaps a few tears). But such moments are crucial for getting children off to a healthy start in life, and for advancing progress on global health and development goals.

ABU DHABI/NEW YORK – For a child, receiving a vaccine takes just a moment (and perhaps a few tears). But such moments are crucial for getting children off to a healthy start in life, and for advancing progress on global health and development goals.

Along with Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, we attach great importance to the world’s first global summit, being held this week in Abu Dhabi, aimed at ensuring that all children have access to the full benefits of vaccines.

Vaccines protect people for a lifetime. They are one of the most cost-effective investments we can make to improve our world. Vaccines have eradicated smallpox, pushed polio to the verge of eradication, and saved millions of children from measles, diphtheria, tetanus, and other deadly and disabling diseases. Thanks in large part to the power of vaccines, the number of children dying before the age of five has fallen from 20 million in 1960 to 6.9 million in 2011, despite a large increase in global population.

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