Vaccination is the best option for preventing illness in children

More than 100 kilometres from Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, is the community of Mamporal in Barlovento, Miranda state. In this settlement is a community clinic where local inhabitants gathered for a mass vaccination day for children and pregnancy mothers.

“Some children are afraid of getting vaccinated, but others aren’t afraid because they know it’s important for their health!” says Johana López, who has worked as a vaccinator for over 15 years.

To get to work, Johana walks for twenty-five to thirty minutes every day. That’s how long it takes her to get from her home to the vaccination centre, where she works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. She makes this journey under the harsh sun. The temperature never drops below 26 degrees Celsius, but she doesn’t stop smiling.

Vaccination is all parents’ best way of preventing illness in their children. “Here I’ve vaccinated children from birth, with their BCGs, and against at two months, and so on...”, she adds.

In her daily work, Johana senses the appreciation of each member of her community, and their gratitude for her work. “The children recognise me as their vaccinator and they tell me that, thanks to me, the injections don’t hurt as much”, she says.

In just one day, a total of 60 children received the different vaccines available, including pentavalent, polio, and diphtheria-tetanus toxoids. The initiative, which also involved recreational activities promoting children’s rights, sparked the community’s interest. After receiving the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it wanted to learn more about how to protect children.

Johana explains that, although free vaccines are available, people live far away and it’s difficult for them to travel to the vaccination centre because of transport problems; so because of her interest in helping her community and keeping people healthy, Johana runs house-to-house vaccination days.

 “What inspires me is the fact I’m from this community. It inspires me to live in a healthy community where the children and people are healthy”, she says.

To give every child a healthy childhood, UNICEF supports the routine immunisation programme and vaccination campaigns in Venezuela by purchasing vaccines against severe forms of tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B, pneumonia caused by Haemophilus influenzae, polio (oral and injectable), measles, mumps and rubella, and yellow fever vaccines. It also provides technical support to the Expanded Immunisation Programme by supporting door-to-door vaccination campaigns with health authorities for children and pregnant women in hard-to-reach areas and helps to strengthen the cold chain for safe storage of vaccines.

By August 2021, UNICEF had contributed to getting more than 250,000 Venezuelan children vaccinated against measles.