Childhood Vaccination Decline Due to COVID-19 Pandemic Increases Infant Mortality: WHO Launches ‘The Big Catch-up’ Initiative.

EUROPA PRESS.- The director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biological Products of the World Health Organization (WHO), Kate O’Brien, has warned that the decrease in childhood vaccination produced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic 19 has caused an increase of at least 5% in infant mortality worldwide.

“We are still working on the estimates, but what we already see is that the immunization rollback has most likely caused a 5% increase in infant mortality in the world. And each of these lives that are lost adds to the mortality that already exists due to the imperfection of the coverage of the immunization system of the countries”, O’Brien pointed out.

For all this, the WHO, UNICEF, Gavi (Vaccine Alliance) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, together with the Immunization Agenda 2030 and other global and national health partners, have come together to launch the initiative ‘The Big Catch -up’, a targeted global effort to boost childhood vaccination after the decline caused by the pandemic.

Aim

The objective is to reverse the fall in childhood vaccination registered in more than 100 countries since the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the overload of health services, the closure of health centers and the interruption of imports and exports of vials, syringes and other medical supplies.

“There is no country in the world that is excluded from ‘The Big Catch-up’. The great recovery is a worldwide effort. There really is no country that has achieved optimal vaccination coverage for all life-saving vaccines,” O’Brien said. Ongoing challenges such as conflict, climate shocks, and uncertainties about vaccines also contributed to declining coverage rates.

shoots

In 2021 alone, more than 25 million children did not receive at least one vaccine, and there were outbreaks of preventable diseases, including measles, diphtheria, polio, and yellow fever.

Therefore, the objective of ‘The Big Catch-up’ is to protect populations from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, save children’s lives and strengthen national health systems.

At the same time as an appeal is made to the population and governments of all countries to contribute to the recovery by caring for children left unvaccinated, ‘The Big Catch-up’ will focus especially on the 20 countries in which living three quarters of children who were not vaccinated in 2021.