Make vaccines a priority :WHO urges Africa
A new report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean Region has called on the continent to unite to make vaccines a priority for Africa’s future.
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Entitled, “Fulfilling a Promise: Ensuring Immunisation for All in Africa”, the report highlights progress and challenges towards providing universal access to immunisation on the African continent.
It notes that while there have been some great progress in vaccination on the continent, one in five children on the continent still does not receive life-saving immunisation and Africa’s routine immunisation coverage of 80 per cent is the lowest of any region in the world.
Progress
The report stated that routine immunisation coverage had increased considerably across the continent.
Average DTP3 (the vaccine for diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis recommended for all infants) coverage increased from 57 per cent in 2000 to 80 per cent in 2014. The coverage rate of this vaccine is generally understood as the best way to measure overall immunisation coverage.
It further said that measles deaths declined by 86 per cent between 2000 and 2014, while the introduction of new vaccines in Africa had also been a major success.
Many countries in Africa have also introduced multiple new vaccines, such as pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and rotavirus vaccine, at the same time.
Challenges
According to the report, despite those achievements, some significant challenges remained.
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“One in five children still do not receive the most basic vaccines they need. While DTP3 coverage throughout Africa has improved, progress in recent years has slowed,” it said.
Again, three critical diseases — measles, rubella, and neonatal tetanus — that had been eliminated or nearly eliminated in most regions of the world remained widespread in Africa, the report said, adding that a quarter of African countries were yet to eliminate tetanus cases, representing 13 of the 23 countries not having reached that achievement worldwide.
It also highlighted that many countries had fragile health systems that had buckled under sudden crises, such as armed conflict or major disease outbreaks, for example, the Ebola outbreak, and proposed that those systems needed to be made more resilient in order to withstand future shocks.
The report urged African countries to increase investments in immunisation, adding that research suggested that meeting the projected cost of national immunisation programmes was worth 16 times the original investment.
Report launch
Speaking at the launch of the report ahead of the Ministerial Conference on Immunisation that was held in Addis Ababa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, called for unity among African countries to ensure that every child on the continent received the vaccines he or she needed to survive and thrive.
For her part, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the African Union Commission Chairperson, emphasised that the continent’s unity on immunisation was the best hope for a better future.
Currently, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, supports 70 per cent of countries on the continent, which translates into 38 of the 54 countries.
As more African countries attain middle-income status, they will not be eligible for support from Gavi. This means that they will have to make preparations to finance immunisation activities from their own national budgets.
After the conference, the declaration will be presented to the Assembly of African Heads of State and Governments at the 26th Summit of the African Union, to be held in June 2016.