new york20 April 2023 – public In a new report on immunization, UNICEF warned today that awareness of the importance of vaccines for children has declined in 52 of the 55 countries surveyed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The State of the World’s Children 2023: Immunize every child Since the start of the pandemic, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and Japan have found that awareness of the importance of vaccines for children has dropped by more than a third. New data collected by The Vaccine Confidence Project and released today by UNICEF show only China, India and Mexico perceive the importance of vaccines as holding or improving. country that was the subject of the investigation. In most countries, people under the age of 35 and women were more likely to report less confidence in their children’s vaccines after the pandemic began.*
Vaccine reliability is erratic and varies over time. Additional data collection and further analysis are needed to determine whether the findings show long-term trends. Despite the decline, overall support for vaccines remains relatively strong. In almost half of the 55 countries surveyed, more than 80% of respondents recognized that vaccines are important for children.
But the report warns that several factors have combined to suggest that the threat of vaccine hesitation may be growing. These factors include uncertainty about the response to the pandemic, increased access to misleading information, reduced trust in expertise, and political polarization.
“At the height of the pandemic, scientists rapidly developed vaccines that saved countless lives. has spread as widely as,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “This data is a worrying warning signal. We cannot allow reliance on routine immunization to become the new victim of a pandemic. It could be children suffering from other preventable diseases.”
Surprisingly, the decline in confidence comes amid the biggest sustained setback in childhood immunization in 30 years, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has disrupted childhood immunization almost everywhere, especially due to the strained demands on health systems, the diversion of immunization resources to COVID-19 vaccination, shortages of health workers, and stay-at-home measures. rice field.
Today’s report warns that a total of 67 million children will not be vaccinated between 2019 and 2021, with 112 countries declining immunization coverage. Children born just before or during the pandemic are past the age at which they would normally be vaccinated, highlighting the need for urgent action to catch up with those they miss and prevent deadly disease outbreaks. For example, in 2022, the number of measles cases will more than double the previous year’s total. The number of children paralyzed by polio in 2022 has increased by 16% compared to the previous year. Between 2019 and 2021 and her three years earlier, the number of children paralyzed by polio increased eightfold. , underscores the need to ensure that vaccination efforts are sustained.
The pandemic has also exacerbated existing inequalities. Immunization is not yet available, inaccessible or affordable for a great many children, especially in the most marginalized communities. Even before the pandemic, immunization progress had stalled for almost a decade as the world struggled to reach the most marginalized children.
Of the 67 million children who did not receive routine immunizations between 2019 and 2021, 48 million did not receive a single dose of routine vaccines. As of the end of 2021, India and Nigeria (both countries with very large birth cohorts) had the highest number of zero-dose children, while the increase in the number of zero-dose children was highest in Myanmar and the Philippines. was particularly noticeable.
The missing children live in the poorest, most remote and marginalized communities, sometimes affected by conflict. According to new data produced for the report by the International Center for Equity in Health, one in five children in the poorest households is unvaccinated, compared to 20 in the richest households. is only one person. Reach communities such as rural areas and urban slums. There are often mothers who cannot go to school and who have little say in family decisions. These challenges are the largest in low- and middle-income countries, where 1 in 10 children in urban areas has zero dose, and in rural areas she has 1 in 6 children. In upper-middle income countries, there is little difference between urban and rural children.
Improving primary health care and providing frontline workers, who are predominantly women, with the resources and support they need is essential to immunizing every child. According to the report, women are at the forefront of vaccination, but face low wages, informal employment, lack of formal training and career opportunities, and threats to their safety.
To address this child survival crisis, UNICEF reinforces its commitment to governments to increase funding for immunization and works with stakeholders to release available resources, including COVID-19 funding. and call for urgent implementation and acceleration of catch-up vaccination efforts. To protect children and prevent disease epidemics.
The report calls on governments to:
- Urgently identify and contact all children, especially those who were not vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Strengthen demand for vaccines, including building trust
- Prioritize funding for immunization services and primary care
- Building resilient healthcare systems through investment in female healthcare workers, innovation and local manufacturing
“Immunization has saved millions of lives and protected communities from epidemics of deadly diseases,” said Catherine Russell. “We are well aware that disease does not respect borders. Routine immunizations and a strong health system are the best ways to prevent future pandemics, unnecessary death and suffering. COVID-19 With vaccination funds still available, now is the time to redirect those funds to strengthen immunization services and invest in sustainable systems for all children.”
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Note to editors:
The State of the World’s Children is UNICEF’s flagship report. The 2023 edition is the first edition of the report dedicated solely to routine immunization. UNICEF reaches almost half of the world’s children with life-saving vaccines each year.
*The Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been monitoring vaccine confidence since 2015 by analyzing data from nationally representative country surveys. The data presented in this report are from a large retrospective study of changes in vaccine confidence from 2015 to November 2019 and beyond 2021. The data in this report represent a subset of the more complete dataset collected by VCP.You can explore the full dataset using this An interactive map tool.
