Child vaccination progress is in a standstill. For decades, the number of children vaccinated against measles, polio and others increased. But since 2010, the vaccination rate has been stagnating in many countries, according to a study.
Millions of children are therefore exposed to fatal diseases, warn international experts in a study by the specialized journal “Lancet”, published on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday.
According to the study, Switzerland is doing relatively well. In 2023, 96.8% of children under one year old were vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and darling. This rate places Switzerland in the first third of the countries of the world and in the average of Western European countries.
Scientists have analyzed the data of 204 states and regions concerning the evolution of infant routine vaccinations. Overall, global vaccination protection has improved significantly between 1980 and 2023: the rate of vaccination against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, darling, measles, polio and tuberculosis has doubled during this period.
At the same time, the number of “zero dose” children – that is to say those who have not received a single dose of the diphtheria vaccine, tetanus and whooping – decreased by around 75% in the world.
COVVI-19 worsened the trend
Since 2010, progress has however stagnated, even regressed in many countries. Vaccination coverage against measles, for example, decreased in 100 countries out of 204 between 2010 and 2019. In 21 of the 36 high income countries, the vaccination coverage rate fell for at least one of the main infant vaccines during this period.
The Pandemic of COVID-19 further aggravated the situation. The number of children without any vaccination dose reached 18.6 million during the pandemic, before falling to 15.7 million in 2023. More than half of these unvaccinated children live in only eight countries, mainly in sub -Saharan Africa and South Asia.
This article was published automatically. Source: ATS
