Illustrative image (Source: VNA)“We look forward to seeing Vietnam return to the strongchild and adolescent immunisation system it had built before the pandemic –thesystem that stood up strongly to safely and effectively deliver COVID-19vaccines to the people”, said Flowers.
“Parents need to be assured that catching up therecommended vaccines for their youngest is essential – if preventable deathsare to be avoided,” she added.
Monumental efforts will be required to reachuniversal levels of coverage and to prevent outbreaks worldwide. Inadequatecoverage levels have already resulted in avoidable outbreaks of measles andpolio in the past 12 months, underscoring the vital role of immunisation inkeeping children, adolescents, adults, and societies healthy.
WHO and UNICEF on July 15 sound the alarm as newdata shows global vaccination coverage continued to decline in 2021, with 25 millioninfants missing out on lifesaving vaccines.
The percentage of children who received three dosesof the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP3) – a marker forimmunisation coverage within and across countries – fell 5 percentage pointsbetween 2019 and 2021 to 81%.
As a result, 25 million children missed out on oneor more doses of DTP through routine immunisation services in 2021 alone. Thisis 2 million more than those who missed out in 2020 and 6 million more than in2019, highlighting the growing number of children at risk from devastating butpreventable diseases. The decline was due to many factors including anincreased number of children living in conflict and fragile settings whereimmunisation access is often challenging, increased misinformation and COVID-19related issues such as service and supply chain disruptions, resource diversionto response efforts, and containment measures that limited immunisation serviceaccess and availability.
Rana Flowers, UNICEF Representative to Vietnam (Photo: VNA)A total of 18 million of the 25 million children didnot receive a single dose of DTP during the year, the vast majority of whomlive in low- and middle-income countries, with India, Nigeria, Indonesia,Ethiopia and the Philippines recording the highest numbers. Among countries withthe largest relative increases in the number of children who did not receive asingle vaccine between 2019 and 2021 are Myanmar and Mozambique.
Globally, over a quarter of the coverage of HPVvaccines that was achieved in 2019 has been lost. This has grave consequencesfor the health of women and girls, as global coverage of the first dose ofhuman papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is only 15%, despite the first vaccines beinglicensed over 15 years ago.
In Vietnam, more than 251,000 children missed out onone or more doses of DTP through routine immunisation services in 2021 –analmost fourfold increase compared with 63,001 in 2019. At present, 52 out of 63provinces in Vietnam have failed to meet the required target of reaching 90% ofchildren below one year old receiving all recommended routine vaccines.
To address backsliding on routine immunisation, Vietnamhas been planning and implementing catch-up immunisation in low coverage areas.For instance, the country has conducted supplementary immunization activities(SIAs) on MR and bOPV for children aged 1 to 5 years old. Thus, 144,448children received one MR dose and 141,866 received additional doses of bOPVthis year./.
VNA
