UN News release, 20 April 2023. Extracts below. Read online: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/04/1135797
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Some 67 million children worldwide missed out on one or more essential vaccinations between 2019 and 2021, due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and armed conflict, but also decreasing confidence in vaccines, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.
In its State of the World’s Children 2023 report, UNICEF says that vaccination coverage levels decreased in 112 countries during the pandemic, “the largest sustained backslide in childhood immunization in 30 years”. According to the agency, a rise in misleading information on vaccines is one of the factors at play.
UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell said that while at the height of the pandemic, scientists rapidly developed life-saving vaccines, “despite this historic achievement, fear and disinformation about all types of vaccines circulated as widely as the virus itself”...
In its report, UNICEF warns that the public perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined during the COVID-19 pandemic in 52 out of 55 countries studied...
However, the report warns that “the confluence of several factors suggests the threat of vaccine hesitancy may be growing”. Among these factors, the report’s authors cite growing access to misleading information, declining trust in expertise, and political polarization...
UNICEF says its findings highlight the need to ensure vaccination efforts are sustained, by strengthening primary healthcare and investing in the health workers at the front line of immunization...
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
