Millions of children miss measles vaccines, creating epidemics – UNICEF

LONDON – More than 20 million children a year have not been vaccinated against measles during the last 8 years, thus posing a way to be exposed to a virus that currently causes epidemics in the world, announced a report from the United Nations on Thursday.

"The measles virus will always find unvaccinated children," said Henrietta Fore, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, adding that "the fertile ground for measles outbreaks of which we are witnesses was laid years ago. "

According to the UNICEF report, 169 million children would have missed the first dose of measles vaccine between 2010 and 2017, or an average of 21.1 million children per year.

Due to greater vulnerability to the disease, measles infections worldwide have almost quadrupled in the first quarter of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018, reaching 112,163 cases, according to data from the World Health Organization. World Health Organization.

In 2017, about 110,000 people, most of them children, died of measles, 22 percent more than the year before, UNICEF said.

Measles is a very contagious disease that can kill and can cause blindness, deafness or brain damage. It is currently spreading epidemically in many parts of the world, including the United States, Europe, the Philippines, Tunisia and Thailand.

Two doses of measles vaccine are essential to protect children and the WHO, said the WHO, needs a 95% vaccination coverage for "collective immunity" against measles .

However, due to lack of access, poor health systems, complacency and, in some cases, fear or skepticism about vaccines, UNICEF said the global coverage of the first dose of measles vaccine was 85% in 2017 – a level that remains unchanged similar for the last decade. The global coverage for the second dose is even lower at 67%.

Among high-income countries, the United States – which is currently fighting the largest measles outbreak in nearly 20 years – has surpbaded the list of places where UNICEF had the highest number of children in the world. missed the first dose of the vaccine between 2010 and 2017, with more than 2.5 million.

Next come France and Great Britain, with more than 600,000 and 500,000 unvaccinated children, respectively, during the same period.

In the poorest countries, however, the situation is "critical," according to the UNICEF report. Nigeria in 2017, for example, recorded the largest number of children under one year old having missed the first dose, nearly 4 million. Next are India (2.9 million), Pakistan and Indonesia (1.2 million each) and Ethiopia (1.1 million).

Fore said measles was "far too contagious" to be ignored, and urged health officials to do more to combat it.

"If we really want to prevent the spread of this dangerous but preventable disease, we must vaccinate all children in rich and poor countries," she said.