Africa-Press – Eritrea. Thousands of children in the country are still at grave risk from disease outbreaks despite stepped-up efforts to address the backsliding in immunisation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The latest data by the World Health Organisation and Unicef shows that in 2022, 20.5 million children globally missed out on one or more vaccines delivered through routine immunization services, compared to 24.4 million children in 2021.
For instance, vaccination against measles – one of the most infectious pathogens – has not recovered as well as other vaccines, putting an additional 35.2 million children at risk of measles infection globally.
The two agencies are now calling on countries to accelerate their plans to reach every child with the vaccines they need.
Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said efforts must urgently be strengthened to catch up with children who missed their vaccination while restoring and further improving immunisation services from pre-pandemic levels.
“Until more countries mend the gaps in routine immunization coverage, children everywhere will remain at risk of contracting and dying from diseases we can prevent,” Russell said.
The agencies have further called for the development of new policies that enable immunisers to reach children who were born just before or during the pandemic.
They have raised concerns that some of them are moving past the age when they would be vaccinated by routine immunisation services.
This comes barely a week after Kenya confirmed three cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus in Garissa.
Following the outbreak, the WHO and the US embassy in Nairobi have advised people travelling there to get vaccinated.
The infections were confirmed in two children who were already paralysed while the third one was asymptomatic.
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