Laura Poy Solano
La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, November 8, 2025, p. 11
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Fund (UNICEF) launched a call to its member states to guarantee the immunization of all children and adolescents.
He stressed that it is possible to guarantee essential vaccines for all minors in the world, particularly for diseases that can be eradicated such as measles or polio, the latter a highly contagious viral disease that can cause irreversible paralysis and even have fatal consequences.
It is estimated that from 1988 to date 3 billion people have been vaccinated but “the fight is not over, because due to low vaccination, there are still outbreaks.”
In the context of the campaign to achieve universal childhood immunization, Unicef highlights that in the past 50 years alone, vaccines saved 154 million lives, “which is equivalent to six people per minute for five decades.”
Thanks to vaccination, which is applied in a simple and safe way, the spread of diseases can be prevented and other people protected, just as each vaccinated person contributes to protecting others.
“We can make a future a reality where diseases such as polio, cervical cancer or measles do not exist. A future where no boy or girl dies from a disease that we know how to prevent,” highlights the United Nations agency.
However, achieving this goal requires a collective effort to apply essential measures such as offering access to vaccines to all children, guaranteeing that everyone has the necessary protection so that they can develop, he warns.
Among the urgent actions are introducing or expanding the use of single-dose vaccines against human papillomavirus; change 10-dose measles vaccine vials to five-dose vials; and stop polio outbreaks, wherever they occur, he concludes.
