Karachi: Pakistan now ranks as the second highest country in South Asia, after India, with the most children who have not received a single vaccine dose, according to a new report by the British medical journal The Lancet.
The study revealed that 419,000 children in Pakistan fall under the ‘zero-dose’ category, meaning they haven’t received even one vaccination.
Despite years of global efforts, Pakistan remains one of only two countries, along with Afghanistan, where polio continues to exist.
According to The Lancet’s press release, the analysis was conducted by the Global Burden of Disease Study Vaccine Coverage Collaborators.
It highlighted that although there has been significant progress over the past five decades, the last 20 years have seen a stall in vaccination growth and significant differences in coverage from one area to another.
The report pointed out that in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the Immunisation Agenda 2030 (IA2030), which aimed to increase vaccine coverage worldwide.
However, the researchers noted that “the challenges exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic” have left millions of children at risk from diseases that are otherwise preventable.
The study, titled “Global, regional, and national trends in routine childhood vaccination coverage from 1980 to 2023 with forecasts to 2030,” warns that without “transformational improvements,” the global vaccination goals set for 2030 will not be met.
The IA2030 targets include reducing the number of zero-dose children, defined as those under one year of age who haven’t received the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine, by half, and reaching 90% coverage for all essential vaccines throughout a person’s life.