Page 35 - HOH

educational materials on the symptoms of measles, purchasing laboratory supplies, renting 60
vehicles and boats to mobilize vaccination brigades throughout the year, and procuring vaccines
against measles, as well as other supplies.

All this required an investment of US$7 million, provided to PAHO by the Measles & Rubella
Initiative, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance (OFDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the European
Union, Canada and WHO, as well as additional resources from PAHO.

The strategy focused on a national vaccination catch-up campaign that included children from 6
months to 15 years of age who could not be vaccinated or had not completed the vaccination series.
The campaign, carried out between April 2018 and July 2019, managed to vaccinate more than 8.8
million children, according to Ministry of Health data confirmed by PAHO.

PAHO and its partners also gave training throughout the country on the subject of rapid response to
measles and provided guides for the detection and early control of suspected cases.

Together with UNICEF, PAHO supported the Venezuelan Ministry of People’s Power for Health to
ensure that refrigeration units in the country’s 24 states would properly preserve vaccines despite
frequent interruptions in the power supply. PAHO also trained the teams responsible for cold chain
management.

Through the PAHO Revolving Fund, Venezuela acquired more than 13 million doses of measles
and rubella vaccines, as well as syringes and other supplies needed for the vaccination campaign.
The Fund also facilitated the distribution of vaccines and syringes in the country.

Financial contributions from partners have been essential to successfully controlling the spread of
the virus. Contributions were received from the Measles and Rubella Initiative (WHO, UNICEF,
CDC, American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation), Canada, Spain, the United States of
America, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, the European Union, the United Nations, the Global
Fund, the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies, the Task Force for Global Health, and Vaccine
Ambassadors.

The main challenge in Venezuela now is to ensure that vaccines and other supplies are available,
and to keep vaccination coverage above 95% throughout the country, which is essential to reduce
the risk of new cases and prevent outbreaks. It is also necessary to maintain high-quality
epidemiological surveillance and rapid response teams to deal with any new case that may be
imported from other countries or regions of the world.

Reemergence of measles

Measles reappeared in the Americas in 2017, after the Region was declared virus-free in 2016. As
the virus continued to circulate in other regions of the world, there was a permanent risk of
importation and reintroduction.