Cape Town - Immunisation is one of the most successful and cost-effective ways to save children’s lives.
Yet the country’s children remain vulnerable to preventable diseases, with three in every 10 not receiving full vaccination.
As the world marks this week as World Immunisation Week, a local expert, Professor Charles Wiysonge, of Stellenbosch University, has called for the immunisation gap to be closed to prevent unnecessary deaths from preventable diseases.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), South Africa is one of the countries that are off track in meeting global vaccination targets of 90 percent, leading to avoidable deaths. This year’s theme is Close the Immunisation Gap.
Wiysonge, who also serves on the WHO strategic advisory group of experts on immunisation, as well as the African task force on immunisation, said despite success stories such as the measles vaccine, which had reduced measles deaths dramatically, only 70 percent of children in the country received all their vaccinations.
This number was less than the average for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, which stood at a vaccination rate of 77 percent.
Wiysonge said it was deplorable that despite the availability of effective vaccines, 1.5 million children from across the world, including South Africa, died each year from preventable diseases.
According to WHO, immunisation averts between 2 to 3 million deaths annually, but an additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided if global vaccination coverage improved. Currently, nearly 1 in 5 children worldwide are still missing out on routine vaccines such as diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus.
Wiysonge said some of the reasons that prevented children from being vaccinated included the marginalisation of children from rural or the urban poor.
Dr Flavia Bustreo, WHO assistant director general for family, women and children’s health, said although the world had seen some achievements in immunisations in low and middle countries, global vaccination coverage had stalled in recent years.
Cape Argus