Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Routine Children Immunisation: Experience from a Tertiary Care Centre, in New Delhi, India

Introduction: Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was a global emergency in 2019 with multiphasic national lockdowns in most countries. Poor accessibility to travel and disease scare led to major fall in routine children vaccination. Aim: To study the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on routine children immunisation at a tertiary care centre in New Delhi, India. Materials and Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out in May and June 2022, by collecting retrospective data from Immunisation Clinic of Paediatric Department of Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, a tertiary care public hospital from January 2018 to December 2021. The data of routine immunisation was further analysed to know the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in children from birth to 5 years of age in 2019 i.e., before the lockdown versus the first and second major waves of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The data was entered in an excel chart and statistical testing was conducted with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27.0. Unpaired t-test of equal variance was used for data analysis and p <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: There was a sharp fall in children receiving routine immunisation during COVID-19 pandemic in 2020(30.5%) and 2021 (24.9%) as compared to PreCOVID-19 period (2019). The overall vaccination coverage was significantly lower (p<0.001) in postlockdown-1 phase (July/Aug 2020; n=521) and postlockdown-2 phase (July/Aug 2021; n=735) in comparison to pre COVID-19 period (July/Aug 2019; n=899). Significant fall in vaccination (p<0.05) was seen in postlockdown phase 1 for birth dose vaccines, primary doses of combination vaccines, Measles-Rubella (MR-1) vaccine 1st dose, MR-2 and booster doses of Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus (DPT) and for primary doses of combination vaccines, MR-1 vaccine 1st dose, MR-2 for postlockdown phase 2 (p<0.05). Conclusion: Routine immunisation for all vaccines had a major setback during unlockdown period in 2020 and 2021. There is an urge for national drive for routine Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD) to prevent their re-surgence.