New figures from the Flemish children’s agency Kind en Gezin show that the vaccination rate among young children in Flanders remains high. This would seem to dispel claims and speculation in recent weeks that since the coronavirus crisis young parents have become less willing to have their children immunised.
Kind en Gezin is responsible for the organisation and implementation of the vaccination programme to ensure that children are immunised against diseases such as measles, whopping cough, polio, hepatitis B and mumps. Although vaccination is not mandatory the High Council for health advises it. On Friday Kind en Gezin released the latest figures on the vaccination rate. These are for children that were born in 2023. As the vast majority of vaccinations given to babies and small children in Flanders are administered via Kind en Gezin, the figures give an idea, but not a total picture, of the vaccination rate among young children in our region.
During the past 6 years the vaccination rate has remained stable. Among the children born in 2023 89.9% received at least 1 dose of polio vaccine. The least popular vaccine was pneumococcal vaccine with 88.1% of children born in Flanders in 2023 having been given it.
The figures for children born in 2023 are more or less the same as those for children born in 2018 with no big fluctuations in the meantime.
However, the figures only show whether a child had been given at least 1 dose of a particular vaccine and some vaccines require 2 or doses in order for a child to be fully immunised, so it is possible that the follow-up doses have not always been administered.
During the first year of their lives, 89% of children in Flanders were given at least 1 dose of the 6-in-1 vaccine that protects them against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, Hib and hepatitis B. 3 doses are required to be fully immunised and 80.5% of infants born in Flanders in 2023 have received 3 doses through Kind en Gezin.
Measles vaccine
The percentage of children that are being vaccinated against measles has risen slightly. The vaccine is administered during the second year after birth. Kind en Gezin vaccinated 84% of the children born in Flanders in 2022. This is up from 83% of the children born in 2021. This may come as a surprise given that the number of cases of measles in Belgium and the rest of Europe is increasing sharply.
There are local and regional variation in the vaccination rate. Within Flanders the rate in lower in the cities. Meanwhile, the vaccination rates in Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital Region are lower than they are in Flanders as a whole.