Is this the consequence of favoring anti-Covid vaccines to the detriment of other vaccines? With 23 million children who have not received the three doses of the vaccine against whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria, the UN is sounding the alarm on Thursday.
“As countries cry out to get their hands on Covid vaccines, we have backed down on other vaccinations, putting children at risk of catching serious but preventable diseases like measles, polio or meningitis.”, recalled this Thursday the Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
In the fight for many weeks against the Covid-19 pandemic, countries are focusing on vaccines that can fight the latter. A strategy that can prove to be dangerous and inconsiderable for the children who will pay the price. “Multiple disease outbreaks would devastate communities and health systems already battling COVID-19, making it more urgent than ever to invest in childhood immunizations and ensure every child is reached “, he adds through a press release.
23 million children under or unvaccinated
This is the highest number since 2009 and concerns nearly 3.7 million more children than in 2019. Worse still, according to UNICEF and the UN, around 17 million children living in remote, conflict-affected or underdeveloped areas may not have received any injection in the past year. This numbers “Are a clear alarm signal, the Covid-19 pandemic and the disruptions it has caused have caused us to lose precious ground that we cannot afford to cede and the consequences will be paid in death and loss of quality of life for the most vulnerable “, lamented the director of Unicef Henrietta Fore, recalling that the” pandemic has further deteriorated a situation which was already bad “.
Based on the figures of the press release, we can see that the DTP3 vaccination rate has been maintained for years at 86% and this well before 2020. Today it is in decline and displays a timid 83%. In the case of measles, a very contagious pathology requiring a vaccination coverage rate of 95% to be controlled, only 71% of children received the second injection.
India posts critical figures
Very affected by the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, India has the largest number of unvaccinated children: 3.038 million in 2020 against 1.403 million in 2019. Pakistan and the countries of South Asia -East (Indonesia, Philippines) have also seen the number of unprotected children increase.
Finally, the region of the Americas worries the UN and UNICEF. Even if the decline linked to the pandemic is not substantial (2 percentage points less than in 2019), this presents a worrying long-term trend. Based on the figures from Mexico, we can see that the number of children not covered by a first dose has increased dramatically, from 348,000 in 2019 to 4,554,000 in 2020.
