Buenos Aires, December 24 (NA) — With the aim of reducing vaccination gaps and strengthening coverage at the national level, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Ministry of Health of the Nation have trained over 150 representatives from immunization teams from various Argentine jurisdictions over the past three months. The trainings focused on the microplanning tool, considered key to expanding equitable access to vaccination, especially in hard-to-reach areas and among vulnerable or high epidemiological risk populations. 'Microplanning allows adapting vaccination strategies to the specific characteristics of each locality and promotes community participation and local government involvement,' explained PAHO's advisor on Health Surveillance, Prevention and Disease Control in Argentina, Wilmer Marquiño Quezada, according to the Argentine News Agency (NA). The workshops included virtual and in-person sessions and brought together heads of immunization programs, data area representatives, and provincial, municipal, and health facility teams from Catamarca, Jujuy, Misiones, Salta, San Luis, Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, and Tucumán. During the sessions, work was done on reviewing the core components of the tool, data loading and validation, analysis of operational gaps, and defining evidence-based corrective actions, in addition to promoting the standardization of criteria for monitoring and follow-up. From the provinces, the practical value of the initiative was highlighted. 'This tool allows us to make an adequate diagnosis of the population, the resources of the health system, and plan actions for vaccination coverage to progressively increase,' stated Miguel Ferre Conteras, a representative of the Immunizations Department of the Ministry of Public Health of Tucumán. In the same vein, Adriana Jure, head of Immunizations in Salta, emphasized that microplanning is key in the face of the re-emergence of diseases that had been eliminated.
