“I didn’t choose this work. This work chose me,” says Sanam, one of the more than 428 000 vaccinators – including 15 000 routine vaccinators and 413 000 polio workers – trained by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Pakistan. They brave distance and difficult terrain and overcome doubts to bring lifesaving medical science to their communities, protecting them against 13 vaccine-preventable diseases.
Every year, they protect 7 million children and 5.5 million mothers with routine vaccines. Over 45 million children have been reached with polio vaccines during multiple supplementary campaigns.
Many of these vaccinators are women who speak mother to mother, bridging cultural codes and going where others cannot. This World Immunization Week, we pay tribute to them.
Meet Sanam, Laila, Rozina, Sagheera, Zeenat, Fatima, Ayesha, Shumaila, Deen-a-Komal and Amina, and learn how, across Pakistan’s provinces, they are proving that, for every generation, vaccines work and save lives.
“When I was in college, I wanted to select a field where I could interact with people and with children – like this vaccination programme that protects children. I wanted to do something for children, as a vaccinator and as a mother.”
“These are my villages, my children. I have walked through these fields in July heat and December fog. When you know a child is waiting, you don’t calculate the distance. You just go. Trust is a real medicine. The injection comes after,” says Laila.
