Large outbreaks of diseases that primarily kill children are spreading around the world, a grim legacy of disruptions to health systems during the Covid-19 pandemic that have left more than 60 million children without a single dose of standard childhood vaccines.
By midway through 2023, 47 countries were reporting serious measles outbreaks, compared with 16 countries in June 2020.
Nigeria is currently facing the largest diphtheria outbreak in its history, with more than 17,000 suspected cases and nearly 600 deaths so far. Twelve countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, are reporting circulating polio virus.
Many of the children who missed their shots have now aged out of routine immunisation programmes.
So-called "zero-dose children" account for nearly half of all child deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses, according to Gavi, the organisation that helps fund vaccination in low- and middle-income countries.
An additional 85 million children are under-immunised as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic that is, they received only part of the standard course of several shots required to be fully protected from a particular disease.
The cost of the failure to reach those children is swiftly becoming clear. Deaths from measles rose 43 per cent to 136,200 in 2022, compared with the previous year, according to a new report from the World Health Organisation and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The figures for 2023 indicate that the total could be twice as high again.
"The decline in vaccination coverage during the Covid-19 pandemic led us directly to this situation of rising diseases and child deaths," said Dr Ephrem Lemango, associate director of immunisation for United Nations children's agency Unicef, which supports delivery of vaccines to almost half the world's children every year.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 27, 2023-Ausgabe von The Straits Times.
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