Childhood vaccinations have declined all over the world, under the effect of the health crisis due to Covid-19. The UN is concerned about the lifting of restrictions in the face of children not protected against serious diseases, and fears an “absolute catastrophe”explains AFP.
The WHO and Unicef recently announced that in 2020, the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP3) had not been allocated as it should have been to 23 million children worldwide. That is 3.7 million more children than the previous year. If the DTP3 vaccination rate had peaked at 86% until then, it has just dropped to 83%. However, remember that the higher it is, the lower the risk of seeing an epidemic spread.
Lifting restrictions risks exposing unvaccinated children
Another eloquent example: measles vaccine. The latter needs to be given to 95% of children in two doses to prevent an epidemic from developing. In 2020, there are only than 71% of administration under two doses worldwide. Moreover, several cases have already been detected in Pakistan.
With the lifting of restrictions taking place fairly quickly, the UN fears that children who have until now been rather less exposed, and therefore partly protected despite the absence of vaccines, will be confronted with these extremely dangerous viruses. and contagious.
“As countries cry out to get their hands on Covid vaccines, we have backtracked on other vaccinations, putting children at risk of catching serious but preventable diseases like measles, polio or meningitis,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Vaccinate against Covid-19 should not come before childhood vaccination, hammered the UNrecalling that seeing other epidemics develop would be dramatic for already saturated health systems.
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