Some 25 million children around the world missed routine vaccines that protect against life-threatening diseases last year as the side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to disrupt health care at the global level. world.
That’s two million more children than in 2020, when COVID-19 caused confinements worldwide, and six million more than before the pandemic in 2019, according to new figures released by Unicef and the World Organization of Health.
Unicef described the decline in vaccination coverage as the largest sustained decline in childhood vaccination in a generation, bringing coverage rates to levels not seen since the early 2000s.
Many had hoped that some ground would be reclaimed in 2021 after the first year of the pandemic, but the situation worsened and raised doubts about recovery efforts.
“I want to overcome the urgency,” Unicef senior immunization specialist Niklas Danielsson told Reuters.
“This is a child health crisis.”
The agency said attention to immunization campaigns against COVID-19 in 2021, as well as the economic slowdown and strain on health systems, had prevented a faster recovery from routine vaccinations.
Coverage went down in all regions, the figures showed, which are estimated using data on taking three doses of diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP3) and include children who receive no blows and those who miss any . of the three doses required for protection.
Globally, coverage fell five percent to 81 percent last year.
The data showed that the number of “zero-dose” children who did not receive any vaccinations increased by 37% between 2019 and 2021, from 13 to 18 million children, mostly in low-income countries. and media.
For many diseases, more than 90% of children need to be vaccinated to prevent outbreaks.
There have already been reports of an increase in cases of vaccine-preventable diseases in recent months, including a 400% increase in measles cases in Africa by 2022.
In 2021, 24.7 million children missed their first dose of measles vaccine and another 14.7 million did not receive the second essential dose, the data showed.
Coverage was 81%, the lowest since 2008.
The figures are compiled using data from the national health systems of 177 countries.