As World Immunization Week comes to a close today, it is an opportune time to reflect on the progress made to date with vaccine preventable illnesses. Smallpox is eradicated. There are some diseases on the verge of elimination. Rubella has been eradicated from two continents. Polio lingers in only two countries. Maternal and neonatal tetanus has been eliminated in India. Immunization of more than 230 million people has led to the control and near elimination of meningitis A in Africa’s meningitis belt. And the continent has now been polio-free for 19 consecutive months. Yet inequalities in access persist. We must…

Early in my career, I was galvanized by a disease that ravaged my country and many others around the world: malaria. My personal experiences with malaria in the field as a young public health officer twenty-seven years ago had a profound effect on my trajectory. Soon after joining the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, I was called upon as part of team to respond to a malaria outbreak. My team was dispatched to a village in South-Western Ethiopia, where I not only observed the malaria epidemic’s shocking effects on adults and children, but also experienced it first-hand. I contracted malaria…