Sesame Street Promotes Vaccinations in the Americas

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has partnered with Sesame Workshop to encourage parents throughout the Americas to immunize their children during Vaccination Week in the Americas which runs from April 21 to 28.

Bert, Ernie, Elmo, Grover and other Sesame characters will be featured in posters, flyers, and “I’ve Been Vaccinated” stickers produced by PAHO for the hemisphere-wide effort to vaccinate children in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, South America and elsewhere. The Sesame Street and Plaza Sésamo characters have broad appeal throughout world and are just one of the ways PAHO is reaching out to children with life-saving immunizations.

Vaccination Week in the Americas, which celebrates its fifth anniversary this year, is designed to raise awareness of the importance of immunization and to improve vaccination coverage, particularly in difficult-to-reach populations and areas with historically low coverage. Since 2003, the event has reached over 147 million children and adults.

Sesame Workshop’s participation in this campaign is an important compliment to their Healthy Habits for Life initiative in the United States and the recently launched Plaza Sesamo Healthy Habits imitative, which encourages children to exercise, eat healthy foods, and develop a repertoire of healthy habits that are simple, fun, and can be practiced forever.

For more information on Vaccination Week in the Americas, and to download Sesame Street flyers and other graphic material, check out PAHO.org.