The diseases that can be avoided thanks to the initial vaccination, in a context of misinformation and cuts in international aid, alerted the UN and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi) on Wednesday, April 23.
“Vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives in the last five decades,” said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on the occasion of the World Vaccination Week.
“The financial cuts that affect global health put these hardened advances in danger. Epidemics of avoidable diseases thanks to the increases in vaccines worldwide, endangering lives and exposing countries to increase costs to treat these diseases and respond to epidemics,” he added.
Measles makes a “particularly dangerous return”
Therefore, measles makes a “particularly dangerous return”, worried who, UNICEF and Gavi in this joint press release.
The number of cases has increased every year since 2021, reaching 10.3 million cases estimated at 2023 (+20% compared to 2022).
And this trend has probably “continued.” In the last 12 months, 138 countries have reported measles cases, including 61 subject to significant epidemics, “the highest number since 2019,” according to the press release.
Cases of meningitis and yellow fever also increased widely in Africa in 2024.
These new ascending trends are involved in a context of misinformation in vaccines, the multiplication of humanitarian crises, population growth and also budget cuts, insists the press release, without specifically evoking the abolition decided by the United States of a large part of their help abroad.
“The global financing crisis seriously limits our ability to vaccinate measles to more than 15 million vulnerable children in fragile countries affected by conflicts,” said UNICEF owner Catherine Russell.
14.5 million children their systematic vaccines
“Vaccination services, disease monitoring and response compared to epidemics are already interrupted in almost 50 countries, with reverse in the Covid period,” he added.
Even if countries are trying to catch up with the accumulated delays during pandemic, the number of children who have lost their systematic vaccines continued to increase. In 2023, 14.5 million children did not receive these doses, according to estimates, against 13.9 million in 2022 and 12.9 million in 2019.
In this context, as his donor conference approaches June 25, Gavi requested at least $ 9 billion “that protects 500 million children and save at least 8 million lives between 2026 and 2030”.
Source: BFM TV
