Only China, India, and Mexico improved in the popular perception of the importance of vaccines for children, according to data collected by the Vaccine Confidence Project, conducted by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

 The report published by UNICEF on April 20 revealed that after the onset of the pandemic, vaccine trust fell in more than a third of the countries, including the Republic of Korea, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Senegal, and Japan. Dr. Cynthia McCaffrey, UNICEF India Representative, stated that reaching the last child with immunization is a key marker of equity that benefits not only the child but also the whole community.

Today, UNICEF India launched its worldwide flagship report, The State of the Worlds Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination, emphasizing the importance of childhood immunization. The global drop in vaccine trust coincides with the highest persistent drop in kid immunization in 30 years, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to the report, between 2019 and 2021, 67 million children missed out on immunizations, with vaccination coverage levels dropping in 112 countries. When comparing the three years from 2019 to 2021 to the preceding three-year period, there was an eight-fold rise in the number of children disabled by polio. Despite an increase in the number of zero-dose (unreached or missed-out) children to three million during the pandemic, India was able to arrest the backslide and reduce the number to 2.7 million.

The data showed that one in every five children in the poorest homes was in the zero-dose category in comparison to one in every twenty children from the wealthiest family. This issue was especially acute in low- and middle-income nations, where about one in every ten children in urban areas and one in every six children in rural areas received zero doses. 

(Source: https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/india-is-1-of-3-countries-where-confidence-in-childrens-vaccines-has-increased-unicef-report/article66758883.ece )