A father with his children aboard their bicycle crosses an almost empty road in Manila on March 20, 2020, after the government imposed an enhanced community quarantine against the rising numbers of COVID-19 coronavirus infections. - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered about half the country's population to stay home for the next month in a drastic bid March 16 to curb the rising number of new coronavirus cases. (Photo by Ted ALJIBE / AFP)
Travel restrictions, delays in vaccine deliveries, reluctance among some parents to leave their homes amid fear of exposure to coronavirus. Image:Ted ALJIBE / AFP
Some 80-million children worldwide could be at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases like diphtheria, measles and polio due to disruption of routine immunisation during the Covid-19 pandemic, UN agencies and the GAVI vaccine alliance said on Friday.
Data shows that “provision of routine immunisation services is substantially hindered in at least 68 countries and is likely to affect about 80-million children under the age of 1 living in these countries,” the World Health Organisation, UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) and GAVI said in a joint statement issued ahead of the Global Vaccine Summit set for June 4.
Travel restrictions, delays in vaccine deliveries, reluctance among some parents to leave their homes amid fear of exposure to coronavirus, and a lack of available health workers were behind what it said may be “unprecedented” disruption on a global scale since such expanded programmes began in the 1970s.
“We cannot let our fight against one disease come at the expense of long-term progress in our fight against other diseases,” said Henrietta Fore, Unicef executive director.
“While circumstances may require us to temporarily pause some immunisation efforts, these immunisation must restart as soon as possible, or we risk exchanging one deadly outbreak for another,” she said.
