Two Million Children Miss Out Of Covid-19 Vaccine—UNICEF

The United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization have revealed that about two million children have missed out on the Covid -19 routine vaccine.

The figure showed that 25 million children around the world missed out on routine vaccinations last year that protect against life-threatening diseases, as the knock-on effects of the pandemic continue to disrupt health care globally.

UNICEF described the drop in vaccination coverage as the largest sustained relapse in childhood vaccination in a generation, taking coverage rates back to levels not seen since the early 2000s.

Many had hoped that 2021 would see some ground recovered after the first year of the pandemic, but the situation actually worsened, raising questions over catch-up efforts.

UNICEF’s Senior Immunization Specialist, Niklas Danielsson described the development as “a child health crisis.”

The agency said that a focus on COVID-19 immunization campaigns in 2021, as well as the economic slowdown and strain on healthcare systems, had hindered a quicker recovery for routine vaccinations.

UNICEF stated that the coverage dropped in every region, adding that the number of children that did not receive any vaccinations, rose by 37 per cent between 2019 and 2021, from 13 to 18 million children.

UNICEF lamented that, “If we don’t catch up on vaccinations quickly and urgently, we will inevitably witness more outbreaks.”