Closing the gap - Reflection for World Immunisation Week

Sr Gillian (centre) in Parliament recently, where she gave a talk and presented a petition to Justine Greening MP. Stephen Brown, European Director of The Global Poverty Project, is on the right. (For an article by him see link at the of this report).

This week, 24 - 30 April is World Immunisation Week with the theme: 'Close the gap'. The week aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. Immunisation is widely recognised as one of the most successful and cost-effective health interventions. It prevents between two and three million deaths every year and now protects children not only against diseases for which vaccines have been available for many years, such as diphtheria, tetanus, polio and measles, but also against diseases such as pneumonia and rotavirus diarrhoea, two of the biggest killers of children under five. (See: www.who.int/campaigns/immunization-week/2016/en/)

Thanks to partnership between countries with people in developing countries actively participating in making development programmes work, in the last twelve months the world has made incredible progress towards ending polio. Demonstrating that people in the world's poorest places have both the desire and the potential to stand on their own two feet and control their own destinies, this year there have only been 10 cases of wild polio in the world, all in a small area near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Last year immunization led to some notable wins in the fight against polio, rubella and maternal and neonatal tetanus," says Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. "But they were isolated wins. Polio was eliminated in 1 country, tetanus in 3, and rubella in 1 geographical region. The challenge now is to make gains like this the norm." (See: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2016/world-immunization-week/en/)

Pope Francis said he hopes that the Year of Mercy 'will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty'... 'to those who have no voice because their cry is muffled and drowned' (paragraph 15 Misericordiae Vultus). Immunisation is one of the most effective health interventions that can be made; in fact the "Global Vaccine Action Plan" envisions a world where everyone lives life free from vaccine preventable diseases by 2020. Jesus' message is that every human life has value. All human beings have the same hopes and dreams and we have the moral obligation to help each person to reach their full potential and live life to the full. I am so proud that between 2013 and 2019 the UK's support will enable the full vaccination of more than 360 million children (that is a child's life will be saved every two minutes during this period).

25th April is the feast of St Mark the Evangelist. Mark's Gospel was written for early Christians facing persecution and death. When a young atheist Russian refugee, Andrei Bloom read St Mark's Gospel he experienced the figure of Christ standing on the other side of the desk and wrote: 'Because Christ was alive and I had been in his presence I could say with certainty that what the gospel said about the crucifixion of the prophet of Galilee was true...... I became absolutely certain within myself that Christ is alive".

St Mark's narrative spoke to the young man who had also experienced persecution and the death of his friends. Andrei became a Christian and later took monastic vows being given the name, Anthony. Eventually being ordained as a Russian Orthodox priest, in 1950 Anthony Bloom was appointed vicar of the Russian Patriarchal parish in London. In 1962 he was ordained archbishop in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland and was well known as a writer and broadcaster.

Immunization averts 2 to 3 million deaths annually; however, an additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided if global vaccination coverage improves. Today, an estimated 18.7 million infants - nearly 1 in 5 children - worldwide are still missing routine immunizations for preventable diseases, such as diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus. Just like St Mark we can choose the narrative that we relate, isn't it time that we counter the narrative of those who say that aid does not work? Working together it is possible that very soon we will have removed the last hiding place of the polio virus, let us do all we can to 'close the gap' - let's choose the right narrative - the narrative of life!

For further reading, see a January 2016 article by Stephen Brown, European Director of The Global Poverty Project. on the Global Citizen web site about India being fivd years polio free - a truly amazing milestone! www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/india-celebrates-five-years-without-polio-why-its/