South Asia warned of child health crisis amid Covid-19

Kathmandu: South Asia could face another health emergency a children across the region were likely to miss out on life-saving vaccinations due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Unicef warned on Tuesday.

The region is home to some 4.5 million unimmunised or partially immunised children and most of them, or 97 per cent, live in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, the UN body said in a statement.

"With lockdowns in place as a part of the novel coronavirus response, routine immunisations have been severely disrupted, and parents are increasingly reluctant to take their children to health centres for routine jabs," Efe news quoted the statement as saying.

The agency warned that sporadic outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles and diphtheria, have been detected in parts of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal.

The region is also home to two of the last polio-endemic countries in the world, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Vaccine stocks are running dangerously low in some countries of the region as supply chains have been disrupted with travel bans and canceled flights. The manufacturing of the vaccines has also been disrupted, creating additional shortages," said Paul Rutter, Regional Health Advisor for the Kathmandu-based Unicef's Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA).