Child vaccinations decreased sharply during the pandemic: "Will have to pay a high price for this"

Even before the pandemic, the WHO warned that reduced vaccination was one of the ten biggest threats to humanity.

Then came the corona pandemic and the world's vaccination program against everything other than covid-19 was limited in several parts of the world.

Something that has now led to worldwide vaccination being reduced by 5 percentage points, the biggest decline in vaccination in over 30 years.

- This is code red for children's health.

The consequences of this will be measured in lives, said Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, during a speech on 6 September.

The reduced global vaccination in 2021 will, according to the vaccine organization Gavi, lead to 240,000 deaths, all of which could have been avoided.

Strong increase in measles

The consequences are already being felt, including in the form of increased measles outbreaks.

In the first two months of 2022, over 17,000 new cases of measles were reported, an increase of 79 percent compared to the same period the year before.

In September, measles outbreaks were reported in both the United States and in Zimbabwe, where over 700 children are said to have died so far.

The rare disease polio has also been discovered in both London, New York and Israel recently.

- Entire cohorts will now not have sufficient protection against the most common childhood diseases.

The quest to eradicate diseases such as polio will take a serious toll that may take decades to recover from, says Mats Målqvist, professor of global health at Uppsala University.

Positive development

But there are bright spots.

Preliminary figures from the WHO and the vaccine organization GAVI show that countries' vaccination programs began to recover during the beginning of 2022.

Among the 16 countries that have so far reported statistics for January-May, the data suggests an increase of 2 percent, and Anna-Mia Ekström hopes that this trend can continue.

- Right now we see how many countries shrink their aid when one's own economy is doing worse, but it is a life-threatening path to follow.

In the video: Hear the researcher why measles is increasing in the world and why we in Sweden cannot ignore the development.