Abstract

COVID-19 is considered one of the worst infectious disease outbreaks in history with over 529 million confirmed cases and more than 6.2 million deaths recorded globally by June 2022. In an attempt to regulate the outbreak, governments across the world implemented drastic preventive measures which have had a significant impact on public health policies such as vaccination, which has over the century proven to be a valuable and cost effective public health intervention. This places the global community at risk for experiencing resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases which are all highly infectious and result in significant morbidity and mortality especially in children.

The main aim of this study was to assess the uptake of routine childhood immunization service (0 to11 months) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A hospital-based retrospective study was conducted in twelve health facilities in the Buea Health District based on a random sampling method. An extraction form was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data from immunization records. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 26.0 and Microsoft Excel 13.

There was an increase of 10.4% in the total number of children vaccinated during the pandemic (2020-2021) as compared to the pre-pandemic period (2018-2019). The highest number of vaccinated children was recorded in the year 2021. The vaccine antigens with the highest uptake during the pandemic period were OPV-3, IPV and PCV-13. There was a statistical significant increase (p<0.001) in the number of children vaccinated during the pandemic period.

Uptake of routine immunization service in the BHD increased during the pandemic period, suggesting that, despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, efforts were made to maintain essential services especially RI in the BHD.

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