COVID-19 Crisis Disrupts Children’s Vaccination: UNICEF
South Asia could face yet another health emergency if children across the region do not receive their life-saving vaccine shots, the United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.
South Asia could face yet another health emergency if children across the region do not receive their life-saving vaccine shots, the United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.
With lockdowns under the novel coronavirus emergency, UNICEF said in a statement that the routine immunizations have been severely disrupted, and parents are increasingly reluctant to take their children to health centres for routine vaccinations.
Across South Asia, national mass vaccination campaigns have been postponed, added the statement.
It said nearly a quarter of the world’s unimmunized or partially immunized children – about 4.5 million children – live in South Asia. Almost all of them, 97 per cent, live in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Yet nearly 20 million children in the world today are not getting the vaccines they need.
The South Asia region is also home to two of the last polio endemic countries in the world, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
