{"id":658339,"date":"2019-07-17T15:35:32","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T15:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"
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\"Director-General<\/p>\n
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\"Director-General
Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed concern over worldwide negligence of vaccination against measles and some other diseases.<\/p>\n

The information is on WHO\u2019s official website, where the world body said 20 million children worldwide missed lifesaving vaccines such as measles, diphtheria, and tetanus in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis finding is contained in new data by WHO and UNICEF.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlobally, since 2010, vaccination coverage with three doses of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP3) and one dose of the measles vaccine has stalled at around 86 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is need for 95 per cent coverage globally, across countries, and communities to protect against outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organisation revealed that most unvaccinated children live in the poorest countries, \u201cand is disproportionately in fragile or conflict-affected states.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost half are in just 16 countries \u2013 Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these children do get sick, they are at risk of the severest health consequences, and least likely to access lifesaving treatment and care,\u2019\u2019 it warned.<\/p>\n

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It quoted Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of WHO as saying \u201cvaccines are very important for preventing outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called for increased inclusion of children across the globe to benefit from vaccination programmes, stressing that \u201cvaccines are one of our most important tools for preventing outbreaks and keeping the world safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile most children today are being vaccinated, far too many are left behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnacceptably, it\u2019s often those who are most at risk\u2013 the poorest, the most marginalised, those touched by conflict or forced from their homes \u2013 who are persistently missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsmen reports that WHO and UNICEF, in collaboration with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Measles and Rubella Initiative, support countries to strengthen immunisation systems and outbreak response.<\/p>\n

They do this by vaccinating children with routine immunisation, conduct emergency campaigns, train and equip health workers as an essential part of quality primary healthcare.<\/p>\n

Since 2000, WHO and UNICEF jointly produced national immunisation coverage estimates for member states on an annual basis.<\/p>\n

In addition to producing the immunisation coverage estimates for 2018, WHO and UNICEF estimation process revises the entire historical series of immunisation data with the latest available information.<\/p>\n

The 2018 revision covers 39 years of coverage estimates, from 1980 to 2018.<\/p>\n

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