Over 20 million children across the globe have not been vaccinated against measles, tetanus, rubella or polio. Half of them come from ten countries, five of which are in Africa.
Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Africa have the largest numbers of unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children on the continent. There are several reasons for this. Aside from the public not understanding the benefits of vaccination and not trusting the health systems, access to care is also limited. In addition, there are too few health care workers for timely vaccinations, infrastructure is deficient and data is of a poor quality. Of these countries, Nigeria may be in the worst situation. Despite its monumental success in eliminating Ebola and polio, it still has nearly 3.5 million infants not vaccinated against measles. And it is also among the eight nations that are behind in eliminating maternal and neonatal tetanus.  Vaccinations have been a worldwide priority since 2012 when the World Health Organisation ratified a global vaccination action plan to stop children from dying from vaccine-preventable diseases. These include maternal and neonatal tetanus, measles, congenital rubella syndrome and polio.
 

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