NEW DELHI: United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said that at nearly 4.4 million, South Asia in 2020 recorded the highest number of children having failed to receive any routine vaccination in the past ten years. India recorded the highest number of under-vaccinated or unvaccinated children across the world at 3.5 million. There has been an increase of 1.4 million unvaccinated children in India from 2019.
UNICEF said that over 3 million of ‘zero-dose children’ in 2020 lived in India. According to the data, just 10 countries account for 62 per cent of all under-vaccinated children globally. Most of the children in South Asia during the pandemic did not receive a single vaccine during the year, which highlighted that the most vulnerable, hard-to-reach children are currently paying the steepest price in terms of disruptions to vaccine access.
Yasumasa Kimura, Officer-in-Charge and Deputy Representative Programmes, UNICEF India, said that there is need for caution in fight against the pandemic so that it does not interfere with decades of gains against other preventable diseases which endanger children’s health.