Greater efforts needed to get routine immunisation back to pre-COVID times: World Health Organization
The Hindu
The World Health Organization stressed that despite concerted efforts by countries, challenges and gaps persist.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on July 16 called for greater efforts in the South-East Asia Region to revive routine immunisation rates to pre-COVID times, stressing that despite concerted efforts by countries, challenges and gaps persist.
"Commendably the region has administered three billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to date, since January 2021 when the first dose of vaccine was administered in the South-East Asia Region.
"As we focus on further scaling up COVID-19 vaccination coverage, we must also do all we can to ensure no child is deprived of life-saving vaccines offered under routine immunisation services," said Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director WHO South-East Asia.
Many counties have demonstrated that routine immunisation can be maintained or scaled up along with COVID-19 vaccination, she said on a statement. "This speaks for a very committed health work force which has to manage both considerable challenges." Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand maintained high vaccination rates over 95% DTP3 coverage throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Bhutan witnessed a slight decline in 2020 but surpassed its pre-pandemic coverage of 97% to record 98% DTP3 coverage in 2021, it said.
“Globally, DTP3 (third dose of vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) in one-year old children, is a proxy indicator for immunisation coverage,” it said.
Nepal substantially revived routine immunisation coverage for DTP3 from 84% in 2020 to 91% in 2021. These six countries have also achieved high COVID-19 vaccination coverage, the WHO statement said.