Vaccine misinformation has added to crisis of collapsed healthcare and poor nutrition, Unicef and WHO report

Conflicts have hampered efforts to vaccinate children across the world, health leaders have warned, as new figures showed about 14.5 million children had not received a single immunisation dose.

More than half of the children live in countries where armed conflicts or other humanitarian crises had created fragile and vulnerable situations, according to data from the UN children’s agency, Unicef, and the World Health Organization.

The war in Sudan has led to a huge rise in numbers of unvaccinated children, from about 110,000 in 2021 to an estimated 701,000 last year. Yemen has 580,000 unvaccinated children, up from 424,000 three years ago.

In addition to the 14.5 million “zero-dose” children in 2023, 6.5 million children were “under-vaccinated”, meaning they had not received all their recommended doses.

  • Flying SquidMEnglish
    4•4 months ago

    I’m honestly surprised it’s even close to that few children.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    2•4 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The war in Sudan has led to a huge rise in numbers of unvaccinated children, from about 110,000 in 2021 to an estimated 701,000 last year.

    Both figures were up from 2022, officials said on Monday, warning that despite progress in some regions, an international goal to halve the number of zero-dose children by 2030 was off-track.

    Dr Katherine O’Brien, the director of the WHO’s immunisation and vaccines department, said: “This puts the lives of the most vulnerable children at risk.”

    More than half of the world’s zero-dose children live in 10 countries, which officials said were “a mix of those with large birth cohorts, weak health systems or both”.

    “National vaccination coverage has plummeted from 85% before the war to around 50% currently, with rates averaging 30% in active conflict areas and as low as 8% in South Darfur,” he said.

    The UN report said there had been a strong increase in coverage of the HPV vaccine, which can protect against cervical cancer, but it still needed to be introduced in 51 countries, including China and India.

    The original article contains 463 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • @DoorbookEnglish
      3•4 months ago

      Lack of food - destroyed hospital - massive bombs dropped - and yet some people refuse to acknowledge a genocide is happening and governments cracking down on protests that shed lights on the issue…