Vaccination has saved millions of human lives. As a measure of prevention of transmissible diseases, immunization has proved to be a highly efficient and cost-effective public policy, without mentioning its great economic and social value as regards its administration. Several achievements as regards immunization in Latin America, particularly the eradication of poliomyelitis and measles during the nineties, have confirmed this fact. Vaccines are also a means to attain the Millennium Development Purposes internationally agreed, particularly in order to accelerate the achievement of Purpose Number 4 about “Reducing in two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the mortality rate of children under five years”.
Nowadays, however, within a context in which governments must fight to find additional resources in order to face new and urgent health needs, immunization actions are sometimes relegated to a second place, and it is necessary to make a solid defense of vaccination and to ensure the right to have access in our region to efficient and safe vaccines.
The purpose of this Act is to ensure the compulsory administration of the vaccines that are part of the National Vaccination Scheme, in the terms and conditions expressed by such Scheme, as well as those required in extraordinary situations, as a basic element for the full exercise of the Right to Health Protection.