UNICEF reports 67M children deprived of life-saving vaccines due to misinformation, COVID

Anjali Sharma

GG News Bureau

UNITED NATIONS, 21st April. UNICEF on Thursday warned that over 67 million children worldwide missed out on one or more essential vaccinations between 2019 and 2021, due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and armed conflict, but also decreasing confidence in vaccines.

UNICEF in its State of the World’s Children 2023 report, said that vaccination coverage levels decreased in 112 countries during the pandemic, “the largest sustained backslide in childhood immunization in 30 years”. According to the agency, a rise in misleading information on vaccines is one of the factors at play.

UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell said that while at the height of the pandemic, scientists rapidly developed life-saving vaccines, “despite this historic achievement, fear and disinformation about all types of vaccines circulated as widely as the virus itself”.

The agency stated the pandemic interrupted childhood vaccination “almost everywhere”, due to stretched health systems and stay-at-home measures. But new data also shows a trend of declining confidence in childhood vaccines of up to 44 percentage points in a number of countries.

“This data is a worrying warning signal,” Ms. Russell said.

“We cannot allow confidence in routine immunizations to become another victim of the pandemic. Otherwise, the next wave of deaths could be of more children with measles, diphtheria or other preventable diseases.”

UNICEF warned that the public perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined during the COVID-19 pandemic in 52 out of 55 countries studied.

It said that China, India and Mexico were the only countries examined where the perception of the importance of vaccines remained stable or even improved. In most countries, people under 35 and women were more likely to report less confidence about vaccines for children after the start of the pandemic.

The report stated that “vaccine confidence is volatile and time-specific”, and that more sustained data gathering and analysis, will be necessary to determine if declining vaccine confidence is indeed here to stay.

UNICEF emphasized that overall support for vaccines remains strong, and that in almost half of the 55 countries studied, a vast majority of respondents – over 80 per cent – continue to perceive vaccines as “important” for children.

The report warned that “the confluence of several factors suggests the threat of vaccine hesitancy may be growing”.

The authors cited growing access to misleading information, declining trust in expertise, and political polarization.

UNICEF said that children born just before or during the pandemic are now moving past the age when they would normally be vaccinated. This lag puts children at the risk of deadly outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, in what UNICEF calls a “child survival crisis”.

The report recalled that in 2022, measles cases worldwide doubled compared to 2021, and the number of children paralyzed by polio was up 16 per cent year-on-year. In the three-year period between 2019 and 2021, polio paralyzed eight times more children than during the previous three years.

It stressed that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities related to vaccination.

The report said that “for far too many children, especially in the most marginalized communities, vaccination is still not available, accessible or affordable”.

Some 67 million children who missed out on routine vaccination between 2019 and 2021 live on the African continent.

In the end of 2021, India and Nigeria are described in the report as “countries with very large birth cohorts”, had the highest numbers of children who hadn’t received a single routine vaccination.

Overall, in low and middle-income countries, one in 10 children in urban areas and one in six in rural areas had not received a single routine vaccination.

UNICEF said the children who are missing out live in the “poorest and most remote” communities, located in rural areas or urban slums, and at times impacted by conflict.

The report underscored the role of women’s empowerment in a family’s decision to vaccinate their children, pointing out that the children deprived of routine vaccinations “often have mothers who have not been able to go to school and who are given little say in family decisions”.

UNICEF said tts findings highlight the need to ensure vaccination efforts are sustained, by strengthening primary healthcare and investing in the health workers at the front line of immunization.

The agency reiterated that these workers tend to be predominantly women, and they face significant challenges including low pay, informal employment, lack of formal training and career opportunities, as well as threats to their security.

UNICEF has called on countries to urgently unlock resources so that they can accelerate catch-up vaccination efforts, rebuild lost confidence in vaccines, and strengthen the resilience of health systems by supporting female health workers and local vaccine manufacturing.

Ms. Russell said “Routine immunizations and strong health systems are our best shot at preventing future pandemics, unnecessary deaths and suffering. With resources still available from the COVID-19 vaccination drive, now is the time to redirect those funds to strengthen immunization services and invest in sustainable systems for every child”.