By Cara Murez
HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, April 21, 2023 (HealthDay News) — While general support for childhood vaccines remains strong, a new UNICEF report documents a significant decline in public faith in the importance of these vaccines.
Confidence in childhood vaccines fell by as much as 44 percentage points in some countries during the pandemic, according to the report.
Meanwhile, 67 million children did not receive one or more of their vaccines for three years due to pandemic-related stresses on health systems, resource shortages, conflict, fragility, and diminished trust.
“At the height of the pandemic, scientists rapidly developed vaccines that saved countless lives. But despite this historic achievement, fear and misinformation about all kinds of vaccines circulated as widely as the virus itself,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“These data are a worrying warning sign. We cannot allow reliance on routine immunizations to become another casualty of the pandemic,” Russell said in a UNICEF press release. “Otherwise, the next wave of deaths could be more children with measles, diphtheria or other preventable diseases.”
Perceptions of the importance of vaccinations for children fell by more than a third in the Republic of Korea, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and Japan, according to “The State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccinated.”
Only in China, India and Mexico did the perception of the importance of vaccines remain at the same level or increase.
People under 35 and women were more likely to report less confidence in children’s vaccines after the pandemic began.
It is not clear if this is temporary or part of a long-term trend.
Support for vaccines remains relatively strong, with more than 80% of respondents in almost half of the countries still seeing vaccines as important for children.
However, the threat of vaccine hesitancy may be growing due to uncertainty about the response to the pandemic, increasing access to misleading information, declining trust in expertise, and political polarization, the report noted.
This comes amid the biggest rollback in childhood immunization in 30 years due to pandemic issues, including a shortage of health workers and lockdown measures, according to UNICEF.
Vaccination coverage levels decreased in 112 countries between 2019 and 2021.
Those born just before or during the pandemic are now past the age at which they would normally be vaccinated. There is an urgent need to catch them, according to UNICEF.
Here are some real-life examples of the impact: The number of children paralyzed by polio increased 16% year-over-year in 2022, while measles cases doubled.
Inequalities are part of the picture, with too many children in underserved communities unable to access or pay for vaccines, according to the report.
About 48 million of the 67 million children who did not receive routine vaccinations between 2019 and 2021 did not receive a single routine vaccination. As of the end of 2021, India and Nigeria had the highest number of these zero-dose children. Increases in the number of zero-dose children were especially notable in Myanmar and the Philippines, according to the report.
Children missing vaccinations live in the poorest, most remote and most marginalized communities, according to UNICEF.
Data from the International Center for Health Equity showed that in the poorest households 1 in 5 children have zero dose, while in the richest households only 1 in 20 have not received vaccines.
The challenges are greatest in low- and middle-income countries, where approximately 1 in 10 children in urban areas receive zero dose and 1 in 6 receive zero dose in rural areas. There is almost no gap between rural and urban children in upper-middle-income countries.
“Vaccines have saved millions of lives and protected communities from outbreaks of deadly diseases,” Russell said. “With resources still available from the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, now is the time to redirect those funds to strengthen immunization services and invest in sustainable systems for all children.”
More information
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about childhood vaccines.
SOURCE: UNICEF, press release, April 20, 2023