Africa vaccination gaps trouble WHO

The World Health Organization urged governments and leaders across Africa to boost integrated action to increase and expand access to immunization as the continent celebrates World Vaccination Week this year.

Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, said action should be backed by a sufficient, trained workforce, strong surveillance and health information systems, as well as national leadership, management and coordination.

"Communities should be engaged to improve health literacy and increase demand for vaccines, with special attention on reaching the poorest and most marginalized groups," Moeti said in a statement on Monday.

She expressed concerns that routine immunization coverage at the regional level has stalled in the past 10 years at between 70 and 75 percent.

Moeti said an estimated 9 million children in the region miss out on lifesaving vaccines every year. One in five remain unprotected from vaccine preventable diseases which claim the lives of more than 500,000 children under 5 years of age in Africa annually.

She said 80 percent of children that miss out on vaccines live in 10 countries. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia account for almost 60 percent of those cases.

"This affects not only children in hard-to-reach rural areas but also those in urban communities," she said.

This year's vaccination week comes in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic that significantly disrupted vaccination efforts.

WHO said the pandemic has disrupted planned vaccination drives in 15 African countries, with over 16 million children missing measles vaccine doses since January 2020.

During the period, eight African countries reported major measles outbreaks that affected tens of thousands. The outbreaks were largely due to low routine immunization coverage or delayed vaccination drives.

The quality of measles surveillance in the continent fell to its lowest level in seven years in 2020, with just 11 countries meeting their target.

On Monday, three Geneva-based organizations issued a joint statement aiming to save over 50 million lives through vaccinations.

The WHO, the United Nations Children's Fund and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance called for urgent action to renew the global commitment to improve access and uptake of vaccines.

"Vaccines will help us end the COVID-19 pandemic but only if we ensure fair access for all countries, and build strong systems to deliver them," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general, said in a news release.

Xinhua contributed to this story.