<p class="title">Almost 20 million children missed out on potentially life-saving vaccinations last year, the UN said Monday, as surging measles cases highlighted "dangerous" gaps in efforts to shield kids from preventable illness.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Last year, 19.4 million children were "not fully vaccinated", the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children's agency said in an annual report -- up from 18.7 million in 2017 and about 18.5 million the year before.</p>.<p class="bodytext">This all pointed to a "dangerous stagnation of global vaccination rates, due to conflict, inequality and complacency," the United Nations agencies said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The comparative birth rate was not provided, but they warned the global quest for widespread vaccination against life-threatening disease has stagnated.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A case in point: the global coverage rate for a key vaccine combination against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and measles has been stalled at 86 per cent since 2010, it said, describing the rate as "not sufficient".</p>.<p class="bodytext">Some 350,000 measles cases were reported globally last year -- more than double the 2017 number, a "real-time indicator" of the quest to expand vaccine coverage, UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said in a statement.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In April, the WHO said 2019 was set to be worse, with preliminary data showing reported measles cases in the first quarter 300 times higher than the same period in 2018.</p>.<p class="bodytext">There was some progress too.</p>.<p class="bodytext">By last year, 90 countries -- though largely wealthy ones -- integrated the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine into their national programmes, thus making it available to one in three girls worldwide, the UN said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The vaccine is given to girls, and recently also to boys, against a sexually-transmitted virus type that causes a range of cancers, including of the cervix.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A worldwide resurgence of measles is partly blamed on the so-called "anti-vax" movement based on fake science wrongly linking vaccines to side effects including autism.</p>.<p class="bodytext">This has discouraged many parents, particularly in the United States but increasingly in Europe, from taking their children for their shots.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The director of the WHO's vaccines department, Kate O'Brien, told reporters in Geneva the UN was "concerned about the proliferation of misinformation (and) outright false information," online.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But she stressed that "access" remained the main obstacle. Countries with the weakest public health systems still have the lowest vaccination rates, though coverage in sub-Saharan Africa rose from 50 per cent in 1999 to 76 per cent last year. </p>.<p class="bodytext">A number of countries with coverage formerly well above 90 per cent have regressed, the data showed.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In Brazil, for example, application of the first dose of a measles vaccine fell to 84 per cent last year from a high of 99 per cent.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Ecuador saw a similar drop for the first measles dose, while in the Philippines coverage fell from 87 per cent to 67 per cent from 2010 to 2018.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The "reasons for backsliding include complacency, lack of investment in public health, conflict, and in some places lack of trust in vaccines," the UN said.</p>
<p class="title">Almost 20 million children missed out on potentially life-saving vaccinations last year, the UN said Monday, as surging measles cases highlighted "dangerous" gaps in efforts to shield kids from preventable illness.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Last year, 19.4 million children were "not fully vaccinated", the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children's agency said in an annual report -- up from 18.7 million in 2017 and about 18.5 million the year before.</p>.<p class="bodytext">This all pointed to a "dangerous stagnation of global vaccination rates, due to conflict, inequality and complacency," the United Nations agencies said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The comparative birth rate was not provided, but they warned the global quest for widespread vaccination against life-threatening disease has stagnated.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A case in point: the global coverage rate for a key vaccine combination against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and measles has been stalled at 86 per cent since 2010, it said, describing the rate as "not sufficient".</p>.<p class="bodytext">Some 350,000 measles cases were reported globally last year -- more than double the 2017 number, a "real-time indicator" of the quest to expand vaccine coverage, UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said in a statement.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In April, the WHO said 2019 was set to be worse, with preliminary data showing reported measles cases in the first quarter 300 times higher than the same period in 2018.</p>.<p class="bodytext">There was some progress too.</p>.<p class="bodytext">By last year, 90 countries -- though largely wealthy ones -- integrated the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine into their national programmes, thus making it available to one in three girls worldwide, the UN said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The vaccine is given to girls, and recently also to boys, against a sexually-transmitted virus type that causes a range of cancers, including of the cervix.</p>.<p class="bodytext">A worldwide resurgence of measles is partly blamed on the so-called "anti-vax" movement based on fake science wrongly linking vaccines to side effects including autism.</p>.<p class="bodytext">This has discouraged many parents, particularly in the United States but increasingly in Europe, from taking their children for their shots.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The director of the WHO's vaccines department, Kate O'Brien, told reporters in Geneva the UN was "concerned about the proliferation of misinformation (and) outright false information," online.</p>.<p class="bodytext">But she stressed that "access" remained the main obstacle. Countries with the weakest public health systems still have the lowest vaccination rates, though coverage in sub-Saharan Africa rose from 50 per cent in 1999 to 76 per cent last year. </p>.<p class="bodytext">A number of countries with coverage formerly well above 90 per cent have regressed, the data showed.</p>.<p class="bodytext">In Brazil, for example, application of the first dose of a measles vaccine fell to 84 per cent last year from a high of 99 per cent.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Ecuador saw a similar drop for the first measles dose, while in the Philippines coverage fell from 87 per cent to 67 per cent from 2010 to 2018.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The "reasons for backsliding include complacency, lack of investment in public health, conflict, and in some places lack of trust in vaccines," the UN said.</p>