New Delhi: India was among the eight countries where more than half the unvaccinated children from around the world lived as of 2023, an analysis published in The Lancet journal showed, “emphasising persistent inequities.”
Providing global estimates of current vaccine coverage, the study found that in the same year, there were 15.7 million children — 1.44 million in India — who had received no doses of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine in their first year.
An international team of researchers forming the ‘Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2023 Vaccine Coverage Collaborators’ updated global, regional, and national estimates of routine childhood vaccine coverage from 1980 to 2023 for 204 countries and territories.
The sources were reacting to the WUENIC data released on Monday, which stated that India had the second highest number of children, nearly 16 lakh, who did not receive any vaccine in 2023, just after Nigeria with 21 lakh zero-dose children.
“The comparison is flawed as the base population has not been taken into consideration,” a source said.
The WUENIC data showed that India’s rank improved from 2021, when the country had recorded the highest number of zero-dose children globally at 27.3 lakh.
The sources said India’s antigen-wise coverage is better than that of the world average for all antigens for 2023.
They said India’s DPT 1 proxy for zero-dose is 93 per cent, whereas the global average is 89 per cent.
“Thus, India is 4 per cent better than the world,” the source said.
India’s DPT3 proxy for under-vaccinated is 91 per cent, whereas the global average is 84 per cent. Thus, India is 7 per cent better than the world. Besides, India’s MCV1 is 92 per cent, whereas the global average is 83 per cent.
“Thus, India is 10 per cent better than the world,” the source said.
All efforts are being made to reach these zero-dose children. A special zero-dose plan has been made and it is under implementation, the health ministry sources stated.
In the WUENIC data, India is followed by Ethiopia, Congo, Sudan, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Angola, Pakistan, Somalia, Vietnam, Madagascar, Mexico, South Africa, Mali, DPRK, China, Guinea, and Myanmar.
These 20 countries were prioritised in the context of the Immunisation Agenda 2030 , based on their number of zero-dose children in 2021.
China is 18th in the list of the top 20 zero-dose countries, while Pakistan is at the 10th position.
Among the countries ranked by the number of zero-dose children, ROSA (2021-2023, India was the first among eight countries with 1,592,000 zero-dose children.
The World Health Organisation on Tuesday called on countries in the Southeast Asia region to further strengthen efforts at all levels, with tailored approaches at sub-national levels, to identify and immunise unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children.
