The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies welcomes this opportunity to address the 61st session of the World Health Assembly and this agenda item on the global immunization strategy.

Last year, during the session on reducing global measles mortality, we joined you in recognizing the success of the Measles Initiative.

Again this year we are privileged to stand with the WHA delegates and applaud the stunning achievements recently announced – that there has been a remarkable 68% global reduction in measles mortality and a staggering 91% reduction in Africa.

The 2.8 million lives saved translate into much more than just numbers.

With the vision of the Measles Initiative partnership, founded in 2001 by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF and WHO, communities have been at the core of these gains. The International Federation was there during the conception of this unique Initiative and has supported its activities since its birth.

The recent achievements, which are a significant contribution towards immunization goals embodied in the Global Immunization Vision and Strategy and which have been made through the utilization of one of the most cost-effective services – childhood vaccination – help communities to realize their right to health and reduce their vulnerability.

It is these communities, the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach, which will make the difference when we measure our performance against the Millennium Development Goals, and particularly MDG 4: to reduce child mortality.

It is also these vulnerable communities which both WHO and the IFRC put at the centre of our work, and to which we are accountable.

As the world’s largest humanitarian organisation with a presence in virtually every corner of the world, the IFRC and its network of National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies stand ready to contribute our most valuable resource – community-based volunteers – to the efforts of your governments and the Measles Initiative.

It is in our function as auxiliaries to your work, and with the guidance of our Fundamental Principles, that we as civil society can make an enormous contribution to ensuring that together we reach the highest attainable vaccination coverage levels in routine as well as supplementary immunization activities.

These successes, and the achievement of MDG 4, will only be realized when we work in meaningful partnership.

Just last week we had the honour of welcoming the Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan, to open our annual Global Health Forum under the banner of “Primary Health Care starts with people.”

Dr Chan, confirming that the International Federation is a valued WHO partner, recognized our grassroots capacity to fill gaps by going to the household level, reaching the inaccessible areas, and finding the most vulnerable.

She said, and I quote “With the vast sweep of your operations, unified by shared principles, policies, and practices, and the scale of your implementation force, you can quite literally operationalize WHO technical recommendations in every corner of the world.”

Indeed, we agree that it is this distinctive resource – our active and engaged National Societies and their volunteers – which can add value to your endeavours to reduce vaccine-preventable morbidity and mortality and alleviate suffering through a spectrum of health interventions, including measles vaccination.

Last year, the Red Cross Movement contributed financial support to 35 countries conducting measles campaigns.

In 13 of these campaigns, over 20,000 Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers mobilized their communities to participate by educating them on the importance of vaccination.

This year we recommit ourselves as active partners to your critical immunization work and pledge to work together to maximize measles vaccination coverage.

2006 marked the first year that global routine measles coverage reached 80%.

This concrete step towards improved child health calls for celebration, but should also invigorate our push towards realizing the GIVS targets, and particularly towards the goal of reducing measles mortality by 90% by 2010.

With each volunteer that visits a household, we have the opportunity to promote vaccination, and take one step closer to that goal.

This can best be done in partnership, thus we ask, Chair, that all governments engage their National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to explore creative ways of complementing their activities with the power of the volunteer network.