The world has yet to catch up from a major drop in childhood immunisations during the COVID pandemic, according to new data. Fewer children are getting vaccinated today than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data that shows the world is not on track to meet global vaccination goals by 2030. The pandemic disrupted immunisation campaigns around the world, and while vaccination rates rebounded in some countries in 2022, progress stalled in 2023.
Lower-income and conflict-ridden countries in particular are being left behind, according to the new data from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, which covers immunisation across 195 countries. In 2023, 21 million children were unvaccinated or undervaccinated for DTP, which covers diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis and serves as a benchmark of overall immunisation coverage. That’s up from 18.
3 million in 2019, the report found. "We've never seen backsliding of that magnitude or of that scale, meaning the number of countries, in probably 20 or 30 years," Dr Katherine O'Brien, director of the WHO’s department of immunisation, vaccines, and biologicals, said of the pandemic period during a press briefing. The WHO is now trying to identify kids who missed shots during the pandemic and get them up-to-speed on routine vaccinations, in what the group calls .
"It is important that the next pandemic wouldn’t really affect delivery of regular services, not only immunisation, but also other primary health c.