By 2020, 2.7 million children in the Pan-American region will not receive the essential vaccines needed to keep them healthy, due to health service interruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pan-American’s director warned. American Health Organization (PAHO), Carissa Etienne. Gaps in vaccination rates, including for COVID-19 vaccines, need to be closed, she said.
“As we worked hard to protect our population from COVID-19, our routine immunization programs were hit hard,” Etienne said at the start of the 20th Vaccination Week in Roseau, Dominica. “But even before COVID-19 brought the world to a sudden halt, our routine vaccine coverage had fallen below optimal levels,” she added.
According to the PAHO director, the past two years have reversed nearly three decades of advances in polio and measles vaccination, creating a real risk for its reintroduction. “Today we are back at the same level of vaccination coverage as we were in 1994, when these diseases were still a serious threat to our children, families and communities,” she said.
Etienne warned that “if this situation continues, we will pay an extremely high price in the form of loss of life, increased disability and enormous financial costs.”
Since the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccines in the region 15 months ago, more than 66 percent of people in Latin America and the Caribbean have been fully vaccinated. “However, this remarkable achievement is not enough,” said Etienne. “There is still a long way to go to ensure that all at-risk groups receive the doses they need for protection.”
“The unequal access to COVID-19 vaccines and the widespread reluctance to vaccinate have exposed a number of fault lines in our regional landscape,” she said. Etienne added that “this is a dilemma that should be addressed sooner rather than later.” Vaccination Week is an opportunity to “resolve doubts and promote the benefits of vaccination.”
The Pan-American region has led the way in the eradication of smallpox, the eradication of polio, measles and rubella, and the early adoption of new vaccines such as pneumococcal, human papillomavirus (HPV) and rotavirus, to name a few. This year, the countries and territories in the region plan to immunize about 140 million people during Vaccination Week, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
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