Child vaccination in Argentina drops to worrying levels, pediatricians warn

The proportion of Argentine children receiving key vaccines is dropping fast, pediatricians have warned. In 2024, less than half of children aged five and six received the vaccines that are required to start school, which aim to combat infectious diseases like measles, mumps and polio.  Doctors say the declining numbers mean communities could risk losing collective immunity which is when a disease cannot spread in a population because such a high proportion of individuals are immune to it. Collective immunity is crucial to protecting the overall population because some people, such as young babies and people with certain medical conditions, cannot receive the vaccine. In Argentina, vaccinating children and teenagers is mandatory. The policy is enforced by requiring parents to have their children vaccinated in order to enroll them in primary school. Compulsory vaccines for first-graders include the second shots of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, as well as the polio vaccine and another jab that protects against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus. Many of these potentially lethal diseases had been eradicated in Argentina thanks to mandatory vaccination, but new cases have begun to appear in recent years. According to recent Health Ministry information and data from the Argentine Pediatric Society, none of the aforementioned vaccines reached the goal of 95% coverage in kids aged five and six, the threshold necessary for collective immunity. For several vaccines, coverage was below 50%. In 2024, only 46% of children got the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. In the period between 2015 and 2019, nine out of 10 children aged five and six got the vaccine pointing to a decline of over 44 points in less than a decade. A risk to public health Vaccination against polio fell from 88% in 2015-2019 to just 47% in 2024, while the vaccine against whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus was down from 88% to 46%. Argentina is currently undergoing a whooping cough outbreak that has claimed the lives of five children. We are in a scenario of weak collective immunity, said Alejandra Gaiano, an infectious disease specialist with the Argentine Pediatric Society. The current numbers not only compromise individual immunity, but also put public health as a whole at risk. Gaiano added that the drop in vaccination is particularly alarming in babies younger than 18 months, pregnant women, and teenagers. The society estimates that a ten-point drop in vaccination rates compared with pre-pandemic levels means that over 115,000 babies did not receive their jabs against polio, diphtheria, hepatitis B and whooping cough, which they usually receive at six months.  At 11, Argentine children are also supposed to receive the shot against the human papillomavirus (HPV), an infectious disease that affects the skin and is normally transmitted through sex. In extreme cases, it can cause cancer. Last year, HPV vaccination in 11-year-olds dropped to 55% in girls and 51% in boys. According to Argentine Pediatric Society infectious disease specialist Elizabeth Bogdanowicz, it is now common for less than 70% of children to have received their mandatory vaccines. We need to act before measles, which already has outbreaks in the region, reappears in our country with serious consequences. Cover image: Mufid Majnun via Unsplash