Cuba, example of full child vaccination coverage

The anti-vaccination movement has spread in the world. On the contrary, Cuba shows a full coverage. Cuba’s child vaccination schedule includes 11 vaccines against 13 diseases.

Fortunately for Cubans, and despite the US blockade on the island (strengthened in recent times), the health system keeps a strict surveillance on the matter.

Cubans are proud of the high rates of assistance coverage, which has enabled health indicators similar to developed nations. The country closed 2018 with the lowest infant mortality rate, 4 deaths per every 1000 live births.

Almost since the 1959 triumph, the Revolution started a few campaigns. In 1962, it created the National Immunization Program geared at preventing four diseases: poliomyelitis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and a clinical form of tuberculosis.

Child vaccination in Cuba is considered a sacred and inviolable act. (Photo: Anabel Díaz Mena)

Until that date —according to information disclosed by colleague Iris de Armas Padrino, from Cuban News Agency (ACN)— it was estimated that some 500 children died in a year as a result of communicable diseases such as whooping cough, measles and neonatal tetanus, among others.

“At present, the said program is leader in the region, accessible to the entire population and completely free, with universal coverage.”

Cuba’s child vaccination schedule includes 11 vaccines against 13 diseases, among them diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis and whooping cough.

The information provided by ACN assures that “the impact the schedule has had on the morbidity and mortality rates of vaccine-preventable diseases can be described as extraordinary, by achieving all these years the elimination of five diseases, two severe clinical forms and two serious complications.”

The phrase that reads “In Cuba there’s nothing more important than a child” is endorsed in this assistance service that protects children’s life from their birth.

The schedule you will see below shows the will of the State and the job of Cuban science to guarantee health, particularly, for the child-youth population, which has made Cuba a reference for other countries in the region and the world:

Translated by Jorge Mesa Benjamin / CubaSi Translation Staff