War has prevented 15 million children from getting vaccinated against diseases, UN warns

Health experts warn that conflict is hampering vaccination of children around the world, with new figures showing that around 14.5 million children have not received any vaccinations.

More than half of the children live in to land where armed conflict or other humanitarian crises have created fragile and vulnerable situations, according to data from the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization.

The war in Sudan has led to a huge increase in the number of unvaccinated children, from around 110,000 in 2021 to an estimated 701,000 last year. Yemen has 580,000 unvaccinated children, up from 424,000 three years ago.

In addition to the 14.5 million children who received a “zero dose” in 2023, 6.5 million children were “undervaccinated,” meaning they did not receive all recommended doses.

Both figures are higher than in 2022, officials said Monday, warning that despite progress in some regions, an international goal Halving the number of children not receiving any vaccines by 2030 had not gone according to plan.

Dr Katherine O’Brien, director of WHO’s immunization and vaccination department, said: “This puts the lives of the most vulnerable children at risk.”

She said children in humanitarian settings “also lack safety, lack nutrition, lack health care and as a result of those things they are very likely to die from a vaccine-preventable disease if they get it.”

Global vaccination rates have not yet returned to 2019 levels, before the Covid-19 pandemic disturbed immunization programs. That year, 12.8 million children were classified as “zero-dose” and another 5.5 million as undervaccinated.

More than half of the world’s children who have not received a single dose of the virus live in 10 countries, officials say, “a mix of countries with large birth cohorts, weak health systems or both.”

These include Nigeria, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia. In 2023, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan will be added.

Douglas Hageman, UNICEF’s representative in Sudan, said the country’s health system had collapsed during the war.

“National vaccination coverage has fallen from 85% before the war to around 50% now, with rates averaging 30% in active conflict areas and as low as 8% in South Darfur,” he said.

Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, rubella and polio were common, Hageman added.

According to Peter Hawkins, UNICEF’s representative in the country, the number of vaccinations in Yemen is “alarmingly low”.

“A combination of factors that have further deteriorated in recent years, including lack of access to health care, vaccine hesitancy and a deepening socio-economic and political crisis, have exacerbated the situation,” he said.

O’Brien warned that the misinformation that circulated during the pandemic “continues to resonate in many countries and even leads to deaths.”

The UN report shows that the coverage of the HPV vaccine has increased significantly. The vaccine can protect against cervical cancer, but it has yet to be introduced in 51 countries, including China and India.