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Disrupted vaccinations raise risks for children

Tuesday, August 3, 2021

COVID-19 has disrupted routine childhood immunisations across the world

Infographic exploring a drop in childhood immunisation around the world since the start of the pandemic

Source: The Lancet, Causey, K et al, Estimating global and regional disruptions to routine childhood vaccine coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020: a modelling study; WHO; Unicef

Outlook

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health services and the ability to access them. This has resulted in millions of children missing routine immunisations.

According to a Lancet paper, 30.0 million children missed the third dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine, which is often used as an indicator of routine immunisation provision, and 27.2 million children missed the first dose of the meningococcal vaccine (MCV) in 2020. That is 8.5 million more children missing the DTP and 8.9 million more children missing the MCV due to the pandemic.

With routine immunisations down, a large share of children globally will face greater mortality from vaccine-preventable disease in the next years as social interactions increase.

Impacts

  • Social distancing has likely temporarily mitigated transmission of other diseases.
  • However, the end of social distancing measures should see a surge of not just COVID-19 cases, but also other diseases.
  • Efforts to catch up with vaccinations will be hampered by the persistence of COVID-19 and rising poverty.
  • Beyond health, a generation of children will be affected by school closures, rising poverty and malnutrition for years to come.

See also