One fifth of the world's children still do not receive routine vaccinations that could prevent 1.5m deaths a year from preventable diseases, the World Health Organisation is quoted in Reuters Health as saying.
Many nations, including the US, have had serious measles outbreaks in the past year, threatening to undermine efforts to eliminate the viral disease by the end of 2015, one of the WHO's global vaccination targets. "It is critical that the global community now makes a collective and cohesive effort to put progress towards our six targets back on track," Dr Flavia Bustreo, WHO assistant director-general for family, women's and children's health, said in a statement ahead of the agency's World Immunisation Week.
The WHO said five of the six vaccination targets set for end-2015 had not yet been met – 90% immunisation coverage for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, the eradication of polio, and the elimination of measles, rubella, and tetanus among newborns and pregnant mothers worldwide. The only target that has been met is getting poor and middle income countries to use one or more under-used vaccines, such as those against cholera, the agency said.
Half of all children do not receive the rubella vaccine and 16% of all children are not being vaccinated against measles, according to the WHO. Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. In 2012, nearly 22m children, many of them in the world's poorest countries, did not receive the required three doses of vaccines containing diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, known as DTP3, the WHO said.
The drive to increase global vaccination levels began in the mid-1970s and vaccination levels rose from 5% to more than 80% by 2013, particularly in Latin American countries. But progress has stalled in recent years, WHO said. More needs to be done to integrate vaccination programs with other health services, particularly during postnatal care for mothers and babies, the WHO says.
[link url="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/23/us-health-vaccine-targets-idUSKBN0NE26Y20150423"]Full Reuters Health report[/link]