Vaccination rates have fallen among schoolchildren in England since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, health officials have said, amid a global crisis of confidence in vaccines.
Fears have been expressed in recent months that thousands of children are at risk of catching deadly diseases, such as meningitis and blood poisoning, with significant outbreaks likely due to reduced vaccination rates.
“In recent years, we have seen vaccine uptake fall due to the challenges posed by the pandemic,” said Dr Vanessa Saliba, a consultant epidemiologist at UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Uptake of the jab that protects against the bacteria which lead to meningitis fell significantly last year, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said.
The number of youngsters given a shot against polio, diphtheria and tetanus, also known as the three-in-one jab, also fell, it added.
“Many young people who missed out on their vaccinations have already been caught up, but more needs to be done to ensure all those eligible are vaccinated,” Saliba added.
“These vaccines offer the best protection as young people start their journey into adulthood and mixing more widely – whether going to college, starting work, travelling or going to summer festivals.”
The UKHSA said its data showed that uptake of the adolescent vaccines offered to 13- and 14-year-olds who were in school year nine during the 2021-22 academic year had fallen, leaving many young people unprotected from life-threatening diseases.
“All the routine adolescent immunisation programmes have been impacted by the pandemic and coverage is not back up to pre-pandemic levels,” it said.
That came after Unicef said the public perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined during the pandemic in 52 out of the 55 countries it studied.
The organisation said last week that its research suggested the perception of the importance of vaccines for children declined by more than a third in South Korea, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and Japan after the start of the pandemic. And it said that, in most countries, people below the age of 35 were more likely to report less confidence about vaccines for children after the start of the pandemic.
On Monday, the UKHSA said uptake of two jabs in particular were cause for concern. Health officials encouraged those eligible to get the teenage Td/IPV booster – the last routine dose for tetanus, diphtheria and polio, which provides young people with long-lasting protection into adulthood – and the MenACWY vaccine, which helps protect young people against four types of meningococcal disease.
They said the diseases they protected against were “rare but serious” and could “cause life-threatening illness leading to hospitalisation, permanent disability and even death”.
The UKHSA said: “Uptake of the Td/IPV and MenACWY vaccines for children in school year 9 was 69%, around 7% lower than the previous year and well below pre-pandemic levels (87.6% for Td/IPV and 88% for MenACYW in the 2018/19 academic year). The data suggests that the NHS has already caught up many children who missed out on their vaccines, with uptake improving to around 80% for children in year 10.”
The health minister Maria Caulfield said: “It’s incredibly important for children to stay up to date with routine vaccinations as this remains one of our best defences against infectious diseases, not just for the person being vaccinated but for their family, friends and those around them.”
