UNICEF warns nearly 20 million children who missed life-saving vaccines last year, while progress is being held back

UNICEF and the World Health Organization warned that 20 million children would not have benefited from life-saving vaccines.

The new data released today show how the vaccination of children against diseases such as measles, diphtheria and tetanus has progressed.

Although more than 100 million children were vaccinated in 2018, rates remain worldwide at 86%, far from the 95% needed to ensure the protection of the entire population against potentially adverse conditions. threatening.

"Vaccines are one of our most important tools for preventing epidemics and ensuring the safety of the world," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of WHO.

"While most children are vaccinated, too many are left behind.

"Unacceptable, it is often the people most at risk – the poorest, the most marginalized, those who are affected by conflict or forced to leave their homes – who are missing forever."

Most unvaccinated children live in developing countries and more than half of them come from 16 countries torn apart by conflict and poverty, including Afghanistan, Iraq, the South -Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Somalia.

Measles, one of the diseases used by UNICEF to measure vaccination rates, has been at the root of several epidemics in recent years.

In 2018, more than 350,000 cases were reported, double the figure in 2017. "Measles is a real-time indicator of the task ahead of us to fight preventable diseases," said Henrietta Fore, Director General of UNICEF.

"Because measles is so contagious, an epidemic means that communities do not benefit from vaccines because of their access, cost or, in some cases, sufficiency.

"We must exhaust every effort to immunize every child."

UNICEF also warned that measles outbreaks were not confined to the poorest countries, or even those with high immunization rates.

Last month, the United States recorded its highest number of measles cases since 1992, although the disease – which can in rare cases cause hepatitis, meningitis, or even death – has been reported eradicated in 2000.

Several epidemics of the disease are linked to orthodox Jewish communities in New York and Michigan, where anti-vaccine conspiracy theories have become popular.

Several other outbreaks are clustered around liberal West Coast cities, where unfounded suspicion of vaccination has also become commonplace. Children under five represent half of the cases.

Anti-vaccine misinformation has also spread beyond rich and western countries.

Dalle Kante, a UNICEF immunizer from Mali, said that during a recent campaign against measles, a father refused to vaccinate his children.

However, once one of them has caught measles, he "has realized that the existence of measles is a reality," she said. "He then brought all his children to get vaccinated."

However, the major global factors that hinder the spread of immunization are war and underinvestment in national immunization programs, said UNICEF.

The cost of a child's complete vaccination continues to decline. In 2017, it cost only £ 14, against £ 20 just five years earlier. Each book spent on child immunization generated a return on investment of £ 44 for low- and middle-income countries.

"No child should die of an avoidable cause, and all children should be able to reach their full potential in terms of health and well-being," said the charity.