India has highest number of unvaccinated, under-vaccinated children at 3.5 million: UNICEF

More than three million Indian children didn't get their basic vaccines in the first year of Covid-19, the WHO and UNICEF said on Thursday, observing that the pandemic led to major reductions in childhood vaccinations in South Asia where millions of kids missed out on their routine immunisation in 2020.

India was hit particularly hard as it had the highest number of such unprotected children at nearly 3.5 million, an increase of 1.4 million from 2019.

In a grim reminder of how decades of gains in public health were lost just in one year, the World Health Organisation in a statement says India tops the list of countries with the greatest increase in babies not receiving the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis combined vaccine.

Between 2019 and 2020, South Asia experienced a sharp decline in kids receiving three doses of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP3) vaccine, falling from 90% to 84%.

The fall happened after four decades of improvement in routine immunisation during which the percentage of children covered by three doses of the DTP vaccine had increased steadily from 6% in 1980 to a record high of 90% in 2019 in South Asia.

India, where every year more than 26 million babies are born, experienced a particularly large drop, with the DTP3 coverage falling from 91% to 85% Globally 23 million children missed out on basic vaccines through routine immunization services in 2020.

“This evidence should be a clear warning – the Covid-19 pandemic and related disruptions cost us valuable ground we cannot afford to lose – and the consequences will be paid in the lives and wellbeing of the most vulnerable,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.

“Even before the pandemic, there were worrying signs that we were beginning to lose ground in the fight to immunize children against preventable child illness, including with the widespread measles outbreaks two years ago. The pandemic has made a bad situation worse."

Measles too remains a concern, as well as outbreaks of diseases like diphtheria which can spread quickly where people are unvaccinated. In South Asia, coverage for the first dose of the measles vaccine fell from 92% in 2019 to 88% in 2020. This is well below the 95% recommended by WHO to protect against measles.

“It is heartbreaking to see this reversal in child vaccinations due to Covid-19. Nearly 4.4 million children are not even receiving a single dose of a vaccine that can protect them from deadly diseases, which is almost twice as many as the previous year. This is a huge setback for children in South Asia, as it puts their lives at risk, and leads to unspeakable suffering," said George Laryea-Adjei, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia.

The Union Health Ministry had organised two rounds of a special drive in February and March this year to improve the routine immunisation level, but the gap persists because of the difficulties that people felt last year to access the healthcare services across the country.

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