Aims

Public health crises have collateral effects. For example, the 2014 Ebola epidemic in Western Africa severely disrupted vaccine uptakes against measles and this caused major measles outbreaks in the years that followed the Ebola crisis.

Following the same rationale, we aim to assess the gaps in vaccination against childhood diseases that were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam in 2020 and 2021. Gaps in vaccination could be caused by imposed lockdowns during outbreaks, but also by the change in people’s behaviour between outbreaks, when people tend to avoid gathering in health centres because of the fear of getting infected.

Importance

Vaccine-preventable diseases are both potentially extremely dangerous and, in principle, very easy to prevent as long as the vaccine coverage is high enough. By detecting the formation of “pockets of susceptibility” consecutively to the COVID-19 crisis, health authorities will be able to deploy catch-up vaccination campaigns in order to mitigate the risk of outbreaks in the most vulnerable populations.

Objectives

• Assess the number of missed vaccinations per disease, month and province in Vietnam
• Assess the delays in vaccination per disease, month and province in Vietnam
• Convert the estimated missed and delayed vaccinations into risks of outbreak per disease, month and province in Vietnam
• Investigate whether there are any differences between public and private clinics.

Methods

Analysis of the data from the national electronic vaccination registry. This system was set up in 2017 and records every single vaccine shot given to any child born after January 2017. Each record contains the vaccine given, the child ID, the day of injection, the location, as well as the type of health centre where the shot is given (private clinic versus public vaccine centre).