New Delhi: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday called on countries in WHO South-East Asia Region to accelerate action to protect all children with lifesaving vaccines being offered under the childhood immunisation programme, focusing on those who have missed all or some vaccine doses, and protecting all adolescent girls from cervical cancer.
“We should aim for a ‘big catch-up’ to vaccinate all zero dose and partially vaccinated children, and restore immunisation progress lost during the pandemic; protect all adolescent girls from cervical cancer and accelerate efforts to eliminate Measles and Rubella from WHO South-East Asia by 2026,” said Saima Wazed, Regional Director WHO South-East Asia, in her inaugural address to the 15th Meeting of the WHO South-East Asia Regional Immunization Technical Advisory Group (SEAR-ITAG).
Highlighting expanded immunisation programmes completing 50 years this year, Wazed said, “We can proudly say, in the last 50 years, together, immunisation programmes have helped hundreds of millions of people in our Region live healthier, longer, more productive and prosperous lives.”
She said that today, the South-East Asia Region continues to be free of wild poliovirus transmission and has maintained elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus as a public health problem. “Five countries have eliminated measles and rubella, and six have controlled hepatitis B through immunisation. Seven countries consistently reach over 90% of children with three doses of diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DTP3) vaccines,” she said.
However, the Region missed the target to eliminate measles and rubella by 2023. The WHO/UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization Coverage data released last month shows slow progress and no meaningful change in childhood immunisation coverage last year compared to 2022, and coverage is yet to be restored to the pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
“Nearly 2.7 million children in our Region did not get any vaccine and another 0.6 million children were partially vaccinated in 2023. We need to understand where and why these children were missed and prioritize reaching them as soon as possible. No child should ever fall sick or die of any vaccine preventable disease, when safe and effective vaccines exist to protect them,” Wazed said.
The stagnation in post-pandemic recovery highlights the need to innovate. We need to find locally impactful approaches, and most critically, enhance the political and social leadership that are the basis for intensified actions needed to meet our Regional targets, she said.
One of the priorities in the Regional Director’s Regional Roadmap for Results and Resilience is ‘reaffirming investment in women, girls, adolescents and vulnerable populations’. “Against this, we must ensure all adolescent girls in our Region are protected and get at least one dose of HPV vaccine to protect from cervical cancer”, Wazed said.
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WHO Calls For Accelerated Effort To Reach Every Child With Life-Saving Vaccines
