Photo. Prensa Latina.

Nearly 20 million children, out of the 135 million born each year in the world, do not receive essential vaccines or do so incompletely, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this Tuesday.

In its latest report on global immunization coverage, along with the Global Fund for Children (UNICEF), WHO indicates that vaccination levels are stagnating, especially in poor countries or countries with conflict areas.

‘Vaccines are one of our most important tools for preventing outbreaks and keeping the world safe,’ WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

‘It is often those most at risk, the poorest, the most marginalized, those affected by conflict or forced to leave their homes, who are persistently excluded,’ he said, emphasizing that ‘too many are left behind.

WHO/UNICEF report has found that, since 2010, vaccination coverage with three doses of diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and one dose of measles vaccine has stagnated at about 86 per cent.

Approximately one in 10 children is missing all or part of the vaccines that can save their lives, but there are extreme cases, such as the 16 countries suffering from armed conflict or fragility, where only half get vaccinated.

Those nations are Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Southern Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

WHO data indicate that several countries with high levels of vaccination have experienced setbacks in recent years, including Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and Peru in terms of coverage of the first dose of measles vaccine.