COVID Effect! India Did Good In Vaccinating Kids from various ailments, But 10 per cent Of Infants Still Left Behind
COVID affected vaccination of Children
Photo : AP
First, the good news. Over 46 million children in India have been vaccinated, despite the difficulties that COVID caused, protecting them from various ailments including polio, diphtheria, tuberculosis, hepatitis, different kinds of pneumonia and Japanese encephalitis in 2020 and 2021. Now, the bad news, about 5.7 million children, about ten percent of those to be vaccinated were left out because of Covid-related logistical problems. The 2022 results, still being tabulated, will only be available in June.
UNICEFs State of the Worlds Children Report says about ten percent of infants in India have been left behind, but the percentage of infants left behind are high in many countries including Myanmar, where its 55 percent, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil and Afghanistan. In all these countries, the backlog is roughly between 25 and 30 percent. As a result, there have been outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in many countries mostly in Africa, but also in the United States of America and India (of measles), the report said.
The report said that confidence that vaccines are important for children dropped after the pandemic began in different countries, but thankfully, it has remained in India. Among those polled by UNICEF, 98 percent in India said vaccines were necessary. It has come down to 79 percent in the USA, 64 percent in Pakistan and 54 percent in Russia and Japan, for example.
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Between 2019 and 2021, 67 million children were not completely vaccinated and of them, 48 million didnt get any vaccines. As one in five children have not been fully vaccinated and preventable illnesses are beginning to happen, the UNICEF report said it was important that all countries had the funds for vaccines, that new vaccines are quickly developed, that supply chains are efficient and digital technologies help in ensuring the data regarding Immunization schemes are accurate and up to date.
Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 1:01 am