Cape Town - The current drop in child vaccinations is the largest South Africa has seen since the early 2000s.
This is according to the UN Children’s Fund’s (Unicef) “State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, Vaccination” report. The report found that there was general reluctance for vaccination in Africa.
There are currently 103 433 unvaccinated children in South Africa and a 30% decline in confidence in childhood vaccines in South Africa due to Covid-19.
Christine Muhigana, a representative at Unicef South Africa, said: “What the report is showing us is that there is immense uncertainty, declining confidence in vaccines. Many are concerned with safety and lack of confidence and leaders.”
Dr Lesley Bamford from the National Department of Health said that although there had been a decline in vaccination since Covid-19, there has been a steady recovery recently.
“We have noted vaccine hesitancy, which has been a huge concern. There are new vaccines we would like to introduce. Nationally we have not experienced a stock-out but do experience regionally. These are isolated cases.
“We have experienced supply management issues in the past, as vaccines are distributed to provincial depots. It is the depots that must ensure delivery to the regions,” she said.
Dr Celestin Traore, the senior immunisation specialist at Unicef, said there were currently 1.1 million unvaccinated children in Africa. He said Ethiopia and Nigeria were the countries with the highest number of unvaccinated children.
“Factors that contribute to low immunisation can be economic (vaccine run-outs), limited health workers and rumours of the vaccine,” he said.
Dr Paul Ngwakum, a regional health adviser at Unicef, said issues of immunisation are due to health workers not being taken to scale, weak health systems and health emergencies that constrain health-care services and workers.
“We plan to immunise 50% of the child population in Africa by 2025 and 90% by 2030. Canada and CareGive have pledged support and resources to ensure this,” he said.