Some 25 million children around the world missed routine vaccines against life-threatening diseases last year, as the side effects of the coronavirus pandemic continue to hamper health care around the world.
There are 2 million more unvaccinated children than in 2020, when Covid-19 caused lockdowns around the world, and 6 million more than pre-pandemic in 2019, according to new figures released by Unicef (United Nations Fund for Children) and the WHO (World Health Organization).
The numbers are calculated using data from national health systems from 177 countries.
UNICEF described the drop in vaccine coverage as the biggest sustained setback in childhood vaccination in a generation, pushing coverage rates back to levels not seen since the early 2000s.
Many expected 2021 to recover some ground after the first year of the pandemic, but in fact the situation has worsened, raising questions about recovery efforts.
“I want to convey the urgency,” UNICEF’s top immunization expert, Niklas Danielsson, told Reuters. “This is a child health crisis.” The agency said the focus on Covid immunization campaigns in 2021, as well as the economic slowdown and pressure on health systems, have impeded a faster recovery from routine vaccinations.
Coverage has declined in all regions, as the figures show, which are estimated using data on uptake of the three-dose diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTP3) and include children who do not receive any vaccine and those who fail any of the vaccines. three doses needed for protection. Globally, coverage dropped 5% to 81% last year.
The number of “zero-dose” children who did not receive any vaccines increased by 37% between 2019 and 2021, from 13 million to 18 million, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, the data showed.
For many diseases, more than 90% of children need to be vaccinated to prevent outbreaks. There have already been reports of increased 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 the 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.
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