Image Source: MediCircle

Agencies:

The World Health Organization and UNICEF warned of an alarming decline in the number of children receiving life saving vaccines around the world. This is due to the disruptions in the delivery and uptake of immunization services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the New Data by WHO and UNICEF, these disruptions threaten to reverse hard won progress to reach more children and adolescents with a wider range of vaccines, which has already been hampered by a decade of stalling coverage.

The latest data on vaccine coverage estimates from WHO and UNICEF for 2019 shows that improvements such as the expansion of the HPV vaccine to 106 countries and greater protection for children against more diseases are in danger of lapsing. For example, Preliminary data for the first four months of 2020 points to a substantial drop in the number of children completing three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. This is the first time in 28 years that the world could see a reduction in DTP3 coverage the marker for immunization coverage within and across countries.