The United Nations on Monday launched a campaign to revive childhood vaccination campaigns around the world, which have experienced a dangerous slowdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in a resurgence of contagious diseases such as measles and polio.
The World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the international organization Gavi (which works to ensure better access to vaccines for children in poor countries) and the Gates Foundation are part of this “big update” campaign. “.
“Millions of children and adolescents, especially in low-income countries, have missed out on (the opportunity to receive) life-saving vaccines, while epidemics of these deadly diseases have escalated,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom. Ghebreyesus. .
“Catching up is a top priority. No child should die from a vaccine-preventable disease,” he added.
Failures for 25 million children
Vaccination rates fell in more than a hundred countries at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the WHO, in 2021, more than 25 million children did not receive at least one vaccine, including 18 million who did not receive routine vaccinations at all.
“Outbreaks of preventable diseases, such as measles, diphtheria, polio and yellow fever, have become more frequent and more serious,” the WHO said.
The “big catch-up” campaign will focus on 20 countries where three-quarters of the world’s children who did not get vaccinated in 2021 live.
These twenty countries are Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Cameroon, Chad, North Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Burma, Tanzania, and Vietnam.
A 5% increase in infant mortality
According to WHO vaccine chief Kate O’Brien, the “deep decline” in vaccines during the covid-19 pandemic has followed “nearly a decade of stagnant progress.”
It is not only a question of correcting the disturbances derived from the Covid-19 pandemic, but also of facing “the systemic challenges in vaccination,” he told the press.
The 5% drop in vaccines during the pandemic caused “an increase of at least 5% in infant mortality,” he added.
A risk of measles epidemics
Kate O’Brien has warned of outbreaks of measles, a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease. When the immunization rate falls, “explosive epidemics” occur, she noted.
For UNICEF Director General Catherine Russell, the challenge goes beyond preventing contagious diseases.
“Routine immunizations typically mark children’s first entry into their health care system, and children who miss their first immunizations are at greater risk of long-term exclusion from health care,” she explained. If we delay vaccinating these children, “it increases the risk of more deadly epidemics,” she warned.
Source: BFM TV
