Dodgy Stats SA data casts doubt on vaccination crisis figures
The South African health department has admitted that recent reports of a sharp decline in childhood vaccination rates may be inaccurate due to flawed population data from Stats SA. Experts have criticized the census data as unreliable, suggesting the perceived 'immunization crisis' may be a statistical error rather than a total program collapse.
Why it matters
It highlights the dangers of relying on potentially flawed government data for public health policy and the importance of data integrity in crisis management.
The health department has conceded that the precipitous decline in childhood vaccination rates it recently published may have been skewed by potentially inaccurate population figures provided by Stats SA.
The issue goes to the heart of concerns raised by critics of Stats SA’s Census 2022, which it uses to calculate midyear population estimates.
When the census was released in 2024, some of South Africa’s top demographers said it was so riddled with anomalies it was not fit for purpose and would compromise future efforts to gauge the impact of government programmes such as childhood vaccination.
Last month the health department said South Africa faced an immunisation crisis, as more than a third of the country’s infants under the age of one had not received any vaccinations at all.
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