UNICEF report warns of ‘backslide’ in vaccination of children in Africa

Nearly 13 million children in Africa missed one or more vaccinations and 8.7 million didn’t receive a single dose of any vaccine between 2019 and 2021, after Covid-19 caused service disruption, strained health systems, diverted scarce resources, while conflicts, climate change have driven this decline on the continent, a new report from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.
UNICEF’s report titled ‘The State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination’ says that the disruptive impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has left the continent vulnerable to even more outbreaks of disease and facing a “child survival crisis”. Amid a global “backslide” in childhood immunization over those three years, which UNICEF said is the worst regression for childhood vaccinations in 30 years, Africa is the region with the highest number of unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children. According to the report, Africa accounts for half of the 20 countries in the world with the largest number of children without any vaccinations — referred to as “zero-dose” children. Nigeria and Ethiopia, for example, have 2.2 million and 1.1 million children respectively who have never received a vaccination against any disease.
UNICEF’s report comes as Africa, but also other parts of the world, report disease outbreaks on a scale not seen in years. More than 1,000 people died in a cholera outbreak in early 2023 in Malawi, the worst outbreak in the southeastern African country in two decades. In Zimbabwe, where children were unvaccinated against measles, nearly 700 children died in the disease outbreak last year. UNICEF said the “intense demands on health systems, the diversions of immunization resources to Covid-19 vaccination, health worker shortages and stay-at-home measures” all contributed to missed vaccinations across the world. So did conflicts, climate change and vaccine hesitancy. But in Africa, the pandemic exposed and exacerbated the “lack of resilience and persistent weaknesses in health systems and primary health care,” UNICEF said.
Therefore, the UNICEF report is urging governments to urgently identify and reach all children, especially those who missed vaccinations during the Covid-19 pandemic; prioritize funding to immunization services and primary health care; build resilient health systems through investment in female health workers, innovation and local manufacturing; and strengthen demand for vaccines, including by building confidence. “Immunizations have saved millions of lives and protected communities from deadly disease outbreaks,” said UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell.