By focusing too much on the fight against Covid-19, some countries have put aside the campaign for essential vaccines for children.

A dangerous delay which, if not caught up, raises fears of an "absolute catastrophe" in 2021, warned Dr. Kate O'Brien, director of the Vaccination department at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

The pandemic has forced resources and personnel to be diverted to the fight against Covid, many healthcare services have had to close or reduce their hours.

People were also reluctant to move for fear of contamination, when containment measures did not prohibit them.

Unprotected children and too rapid lifting of health restrictions against Covid - which also partially protected certain childhood diseases - are already having their effects, with for example measles outbreaks in Pakistan, said the WHO official .

"Deaths and loss of quality of life of the most vulnerable"

In 2020, 23 million children fell through the cracks and did not receive all three doses of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine or DTP3, which serves as a baseline measure, according to published figures. Thursday by WHO and Unicef. This is the highest number since 2009 and it affects 3.7 million more children than in 2019. Even more serious in the eyes of the two agencies, 17 million children, most of whom live in areas of conflict, remote places or slums deprived of health infrastructure, have probably had no dose last year.

These figures "are a clear alarm signal, the Covid-19 pandemic and the disruptions it has caused have caused us to lose precious ground that we cannot afford to give up and the consequences will be paid in death and in loss of quality of life for the most vulnerable ", insisted the director of Unicef ​​Henrietta Fore, recalling that the" pandemic has further deteriorated a situation which was already bad ".

Drop in DPT3 coverage in Asia

Southeast Asia was badly affected by the disruption caused by the pandemic, and DPT3 coverage rate fell from 91% to 85% in 2020 in India, which had the highest number of under-immunized children or not vaccinated at all last year: 3.5 million.

Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines have also seen the number of unprotected children increase.

The UN stresses that it is important that the distribution of anti-Covid vaccines does not come at the expense of childhood vaccination programs.

"As countries cry out to get their hands on anti-Covid vaccines, we have backed down on other vaccinations, putting children at risk of catching serious but preventable diseases like measles, polio or meningitis," recalled WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

"Several epidemics would be a disaster for communities and health systems that are already battling Covid-19, making the need to invest in childhood immunization more urgent than ever."

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