MANILA - The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a regional immunization campaign to protect Asian women and children from preventable diseases such as polio and hepatitis B.

The WHO's Regional Office for the Western Pacific launched Monday its Regional Vaccination Week, joining the WHO Regions for Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe.

"Millions of children in the Western Pacific region are still not adequately immunized, which puts their lives at risk from vaccine-preventable diseases," WHO said in a statement.

Thirty-one countries in the Region have committed to be part of the first Regional Vaccination Week. WHO said that the event seeks to promote vaccination activities, including teaching parents and caregivers on how vaccination can protect children and all people from birth onwards.

The WHO said achieving and maintaining high immunization coverage against vaccine-preventable diseases is an important strategy for achieving United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Most of the WHO's member states in the region have MDG commitments. These countries pledged to reduce by two thirds the under-5 mortality rate in children, and the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015.  

The WHO said that most countries in the region remain polio- free despite the continued threat from wild poliovirus importation. Incidence of measles declined by 96 percent between 1974 and 2010, with 25 countries and areas believed to have either eliminated or nearly eliminated measles ahead of the 2012 goal. Chronic hepatitis B infection rates were reduced to less than two percent among 5-year-old children in 26 countries and areas.

But according to Shin Young-soo, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, these gains will be at risk unless there's continued investment in effective immunization programs.

"Continued commitment is vital if our successes are to be sustained and our efforts expanded so that no one is left unprotected," Shin said.