Covid-19 and Routine Vaccination Programme: Did it Affect Badly?

Background: The impact of COVID-19 on general health care delivery systems has been huge including the immunization services. Several measures were taken by most of the government all over the world to prevent the spread of infection such as lockdown, wearing masks, social distancing, etc. People have suffered a lot during the pandemic, not only due to the burden of the disease but have also faced difficulties in other domains of life. One of the important concerns is the interruption of routine immunization services. The consequences of interrupted immunization services may be life-threatening, as chances of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD) in susceptible children could be high.

Aim: To find out delay in routine immunization services during covid-19 and also to determine the factors associated with delay in immunization.

Materials and Methods: This study was a cross-sectional hospital-based observational study at Career Institute Of Medical Sciences And Hospital, Lucknow, India. We collected the vaccination record after lockdown from Well-Baby Clinic and telephonically from the parents, starting from 1st June 2020 till 31st December 2020. We checked the records of vaccination of infants to find out delay in the vaccinations, as per the National Immunization Schedule. The records of a total of 265 infants were enrolled. Out of which, 33 did not fit the inclusion criteria and therefore were excluded from this study.

Results: Findings of our study pointed that there was significant delay in routine immunization among infants. The factors responsible for delay in different vaccination observed in this study were, Phobia of COVID-19- 20%, lockdown- 22%, interruption of routine health services-15%, social myths-8%, poor transport facility- 10%, illness of child- 8%, did not notice- 3% and multiple factors- 13%.

Conclusion: COVID -19 pandemic has affected the routine immunization services that results in delay of different vaccines at different ages which may lead to outbreak of vaccine preventable diseases, so it is need of the hour to intervene at the earliest to prevent such outbreaks among children.