Vaccination plays a very important role among children. In a year, 2–3 million lives of children are saved due to childhood vaccines throughout the world. The burden of childhood diseases is reduced to a great extends because of the different vaccination programs being run around the world and also reduces the cost of treatment, hence affordable by all levels of people. Recommended childhood vaccines by the UNICEF include vaccinations against diseases like Tuberculosis, Hepatitis B, Poliovirus, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib), Pneumococcal diseases, Rotavirus, Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Human papillomavirus. The COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption in routine preventive health care, including vaccination drives throughout the world.^1,2

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) constantly confirmed the need of immunization among children and proper care during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, especially in children ≤24 months of age. The ongoing restrictions with respect to movement, maintaining social distancing and fear of infection has significantly reduced the vaccine administrations and vaccination coverage in children early in the pandemic.³

WHO and UNICEF officially reported that around 23 million children missed out on basic vaccines through routine immunization services in 2020 and even the second dose was being missed.  Before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 86% of children worldwide were getting vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles and polio. Due to the closing of schools, the rate of vaccinations against human papillomavirus (HPV) among girls to protect against cervical cancer later in life has also reduced considerably, resulting in 1.6 million more girls missing out on HPV vaccinations. Only 13% of girls were vaccinated in 2020, compared to 15% of girls being vaccinated in 2019.⁴

Preliminary data from WHO and UNICEF for the first four months of 2020 shows a significant drop in the number of children completing three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP3).^2,3 Also, studies showed a reduction in the total and measles-containing vaccine significantly among all children during the pandemic in 2020 compared to 2019. Among children aged 2 to 18 years, measles-containing vaccine uptake recovered, but total vaccine taken remained low. Also, vaccination coverage drastically reduced and continued to reduce among children less than 2 years during the pandemic period. Among older children vaccination coverage decreased during the reopening period in 2020 compared with 2019.²

Different cross-national policy efforts and collaborations including the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), and the multi-agency Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI)  are constantly working together to restore the immunization services and vaccination campaigns and safely deliver routine immunization programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic and to fulfil the aim of achieving 90% coverage for essential childhood vaccines as per the  Immunization Agenda 2030.

References

1. Shet, A. N. A. Why vaccines matter: understanding the broader health, economic, and child development benefits of routine vaccination. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics , 2020, Volume 16, Issue 8.
2. Ziad Mansour, J. A., Racha Said, Alissar Rady, Randa Hamadeh, Bernard Gerbaka, Abdul Rahman Bizri. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the utilization of routine immunization services in Lebanon. PloS one 2021, 16(2): e0246951. , 1-11.
3. Bradley K. Ackerson, L. S. S., Sungching C. Glenn, Lei Qian, Claire H. Park, Robert J. Riewerts and Steven J. Jacobsen. Pediatric Vaccination during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Pediatrics 2021, 148 (1) e2020047092.
4. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/covid-19-pandemic-leads-major-backsliding-childhood-vaccinations-new-who-unicef-data.