2023-04-21 06:02:13
In a report published Thursday, April 20, Unicef is concerned regarding the status of vaccination in children of the whole world. With its latest data from the report “The State of the World’s Children 2023: For every child, vaccines”, Unicef is sounding the alarm. Between 2019 and 2021, 67 million children were partially deprived of their life-saving vaccines around the world due to the Covid-19 epidemic. And 48 million children received none over the same period.
“The disruption caused by the pandemic has discontinued childhood vaccination almost everywhere in the world, marking a return to rates not recorded since 2008”, notes Unicef. In 2018, 2 out of 5 unvaccinated children worldwide lived in fragile or conflict-affected environments.
“A decade of progress undermined”
Thus, one child in five is considered to be “zero dose”, that is to say not vaccinated or insufficiently vaccinated. Same observation for measles. “More than a decade of progress in terms of routine childhood immunization has been undermined,” warns UNICEF, which assures that “getting back on track is going to be a challenge”.
Currently, “a large number of children are not immunized because they live in places where primary health services (which include health promotion, as well as disease prevention and treatment) are non-existent or limited. “, explains UNICEF.
Catch up
Why has the pandemic impacted vaccination? To understand this, Unicef highlights the health systems overwhelmed by the cases of Covid-19, the shortages of nursing staff, the confinement and the fear of the virus which has pushed families not to consult doctors.
How to remedy this situation? “Children born just before or during the pandemic will soon be past the age at which vaccines are usually given. It is now urgent to make up for accumulated delays during the pandemic and to support the relaunch of vaccination services”, recommends Unicef. Every year, childhood immunization saves 4.4 million lives.
1682228070
#million #children #worldwide #fully #vaccinated
