New Delhi: About 500 000 children die each year from vaccine preventable diseases in WHO’s South-East Asia Region. Health Ministers and experts from 11 Member States of the Region are meeting in New Delhi today to renew their commitment to increasing and sustaining immunization coverage in the Region.
Recognized as one of the most cost-effective and powerful public health interventions, immunization is critical to achieving Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4): a reduction of deaths of children under the age of five. Despite the achievements in routine immunization in the Region, the coverage is not uniform between countries and within different geographical areas in the same country.
“About 10 million children still do not receive the third dose of DTP vaccine in the Region. Millions of children in the Region have no access to vaccines that are routinely given to children in the industrialized world” said Dr. Samlee Plianbangchang, WHO’s Regional Director for South-East Asia. “Access to safe and effective vaccines is a basic right of all children” he added.
Basic vaccines in routine immunization consist of four vaccines against six diseases namely BCG (vaccine against childhood tuberculosis), DTP (combined vaccine against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus), OPV (vaccine against polio) and measles vaccines.
Reaching high-risk communities and those in hard-to-reach areas is one of the challenges to routine immunization in South-East Asia. Inadequate resource allocation and lack of trained health workforce add up to the low coverage in the Region. Inadequate vaccine delivery mechanisms and a weak cold chain infrastructure also pose a big challenge to effective immunization coverage.
In 2005, the World Health Assembly endorsed the Global Immunization Vision and Strategies (GIVS). One of the most important goals was to achieve 90% immunization coverage nationally and 80% coverage in all districts. However, only seven countries in WHO’s South-East Asia Region had reached the national coverage of 90% in 2010. Though these countries have reached the national coverage of 90%, there are still districts with coverage below 80%.
WHO is urging countries in South-East Asia to strengthen their regulatory bodies. Countries need to invest in vaccines, technologies and train health workers to deliver life saving vaccines.