Three years post-pandemic, India’s child immunisation level is yet to reach the pre-pandemic stage as the national programme missed nearly 1.6 million children for vital vaccines in 2023, a latest global immunisation report released by UNICEF and WHO revealed. In 2021, India had the highest number of ‘zero-dose children’ worldwide, with 2.
7 million children missing essential vaccinations due to the COVID-19 induced lockdowns that disrupted vaccination programmes. Although India’s global ranking has improved since then, it still remains the second-highest country for unvaccinated children trailing only Nigeria, with 2.1 million zero-dose children recorded in the same year.
In response to the alarming report, sources from the country’s Union Health Ministry dismissed the findings and called the comparison “flawed”. They further reaffirmed the country’s commitment to reducing the number of zero-dose children. Here’s a closer look at what the WHO report and the government’s response What did the WHO report say? The latest WHO report revealed that in 2023, 1.
6 million children in India did not receive a single dose of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP) vaccine or the measles-containing vaccine (MCV). The DTP vaccine, typically administered around two months of age, saw an increase in missed doses from 13.9 million in 2022 to 14.
5 million in 2023, with India accounting for 11 per cent of these missed vaccinations. Nigeria led the list at 15 per cent, w.