The number of unvaccinated children in Pakistan is increasing.
According to a media report citing a recent study by the British medical magazine Lancet, Pakistan has emerged as the second largest country in South Asia, following India, with the highest number of youngsters who have received no vaccinations.
The research indicated that Pakistan had 419,000 youngsters classified as unvaccinated. Pakistan is one of the last two nations globally, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains widespread, despite international attempts to eliminate the virus.
The Lancet announced in a press release that a significant new analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study Vaccine Coverage Collaborators indicated that, despite advancements over the past 50 years, the last two decades have been characterized by stagnant childhood vaccination rates and considerable disparities in vaccine coverage.
In 2019, the WHO established lofty objectives for enhancing global vaccine coverage under the Immunisation Agenda 2030. Nevertheless, it stated that the issues intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic have rendered millions of children susceptible to preventable infections and mortality.
The authors of the report, “Global, regional, and national trends in routine childhood vaccination coverage from 1980 to 2023 with forecasts to 2030,” indicated that the most recent estimations serve as a “clear warning” that the 2030 objective will not be met without “transformational improvements.”
The IA2030 objectives encompassed reducing by fifty percent the population of ‘zero-dose’ children, defined as those under one year of age who have not received any dose of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccination. The initiative also sought to attain worldwide coverage of 90% for each life-course vaccine.
