The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine childhood immunization coverage and timeliness in India: Retrospective analysis of the National Family Health Survey of 2019-2021 data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health systems globally. We estimated the effect of the pandemic on the coverage and timeliness of routine childhood immunization in India through April 2021.

Methods

We used data from India's National Family Health Survey 2019-2021 (NFHS-5), a cross-sectional survey which collected immunization information of under-five children from a nationally representative sample of households between June 2019 and April 2021. We used a mother fixed-effects regression model - accounting for secular trends and confounding factors - to compare COVID-affected children with their COVID-unaffected siblings (n=59,144). Children who were eligible for a vaccine after January 30, 2020 (date of the first COVID case in India) were considered as the C

SUBMITTER: Summan A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9584865 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature