(Geneva) Child vaccination rates worldwide are stagnating and have still not returned to their pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, the UN warned on Monday.
Compared to 2019 levels, before the pandemic, 2.7 million more children will still be unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated by 2023, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a joint statement.
“Recent trends show that many countries continue to fail too many children,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
In 2023, only 84% of children in the age group that should have received this vaccine, or 108 million, actually received three doses of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine, the third dose serving as a key marker of global vaccination coverage, according to data published by the United Nations health and children’s agencies.
This percentage has not changed since 2022, meaning that the modest progress observed that year, after the sharp decline due to the COVID-19 crisis, has “marked time”, the UN agencies stress. This rate was 86% in 2019, before the pandemic.
” Late ”
“We are behind schedule,” Kate O’Brien, WHO’s head of immunization, admitted to reporters. “Global vaccination coverage has not yet fully recovered from the historic decline seen during the pandemic,” she explained.
By 2023, 14.5 million children worldwide were said to be “zero dose”: they had not received any doses of vaccine, a figure that is increasing since they were 13.9 million in 2022 and 12.8 million in 2019, according to data published Monday. “This puts the lives of the most vulnerable children at risk,” warned Kate O’Brien.
Half of the world’s unvaccinated children live in 31 conflict-affected countries, where they are at particular risk of certain preventable diseases due to insecurity and poor access to food and health services.
In these countries, children are also much more likely to miss out on needed booster doses. 6.5 million children worldwide have not received their third dose of the DTP vaccine, which is needed to provide effective protection. These disparities in vaccination coverage contribute to the development of diseases such as measles.
Concern over measles
WHO and UNICEF have expressed concern over the delay in vaccination against measles, one of the most infectious diseases, amid a surge in outbreaks worldwide.
“Measles outbreaks are a warning sign of existing gaps in vaccination coverage, which hit the most vulnerable first,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the statement.
By 2023, 83% of children worldwide will have received their first dose of the vaccine, the same level as in 2022, but still below the 86% before the pandemic. In addition, only 74% of those vaccinated have received the necessary second dose, while 95% vaccination coverage is needed to stop the epidemic, the UN agencies stress.
More than 300,000 cases of measles were reported in 2023, nearly three times the number reported the previous year, said Ephrem Lemango, UNICEF’s chief of immunization. No fewer than 103 countries have experienced outbreaks in the past five years. In contrast, 91 countries with robust measles vaccination coverage have not experienced any outbreaks.
Ten countries in crisis, including Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan, have more than half of children not vaccinated against measles, Mr. Lemango stressed. On the other hand, the organizations welcome the progress in vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV virus), notably responsible for cervical cancer.
However, this vaccine still reaches only 56% of adolescent girls in high-income countries and 23% in low-income countries, well below the 90% target.