"Alarming Situation"

UNICEF Jamaica Health Specialist Novia Condell has made an impassioned plea to parents and guardians to ensure their infants receive the scheduled routine childhood vaccines to reduce threats of vaccine-preventable diseases, amid reductions in the procedure. Latin America and Caribbean saw the biggest decline in routine immunisation of any region in the world, with a drop from 93 per cent to 75 per cent over the last 10 years. The COVID-19 pandemic set back childhood immunisation around the world, with 67 million children missing out entirely or partially on routine immunisation between 2019 and 2021, while 48 million children missed out on them entirely.