An estimated 14.3 million children remain completely unvaccinated worldwide, and public health experts point to conflict zones that threaten childhood vaccination efforts around the world, according to a new report.
Each year, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund publish a comprehensive report on national vaccination estimates based on data from 195 countries. This year’s report, released Monday, said there have been some improvements in protecting children from certain illnesses through routine vaccinations.
Globally, 171,000 children were vaccinated more than in 2023 last year than in 2023, according to the report. But that leaves an additional 5.7 million children with partial protection alone, as more than 14 million children are vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases and may not have obtained all recommended doses of a particular vaccine series.
“The latest estimates underline the real concerns about trajectories,” Dr. Kate O’Brien, director of the WHO’s Department of Vaccination, Vaccines and Biology, said in a news briefing.
“The global vision is that everyone everywhere will benefit from a life-saving vaccine,” she said. “But we’ve been hitting this very stubborn glass ceiling and breaking through that glass makes it even more difficult to protect more children from vaccine-preventable diseases.”
The rise in conflict and war zones that are emerging around the world have eroded some of the progress in providing vaccinations to children, adding that many children are not maintaining vaccine connectivity, particularly in low- or middle-income countries.
“Children who live in one of 26 countries affected by vulnerability, conflict, or humanitarian emergencies are three times more likely to be vaccinated than children who live in stable countries,” O’Brien said. “In fact, half of all unvaccinated children in the world live in these vulnerable, vulnerable conflict countries.”
Last year, nine countries, Nigeria, India, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola, accounted for 52% of all children who had not received a vaccine dose, according to a new report.
Meanwhile, in high-income countries, vaccine coverage has been affected by institutional vaccine reluctance and mistrust, leading to the revival of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and polio, says Dr. Efrem Lemango, UNICEF’s Associate Director of Health and Global Chief of Immunity.
“Based on everything we know, over the last 50 years, more than 150 million lives have been saved by vaccinations, which has helped protect children from diseases that can be prevented with all forms of vaccine,” Lemango said in a briefing.
“However, misinformation and all forms of sut for vaccines reflect a broader lack of trust or mistrust in the systems that provide the vaccine, healthcare workers that provide the vaccine, manufacturing facilities or ecosystems that manufacture the vaccine,” he said. “So it’s important to see misinformation and lack of information as part of a broader ecosystem that can be addressed.”
Misinformation appears to be driving the outbreak of disease in your pocket O’Brien said that countries tend to have high vaccination rates.
“Beneath the number of countries where vaccination coverage is very low, there are communities where communities are hidden. That’s where the outbreak is happening and those kids are people who are suffering,” she said.
The outbreak of measles that occurred in parts of West Texas, where vaccination rates are low, has continued to spread in the US, with more cases of measles reported than any other cases since the disease was declared eliminated a quarter century ago.
But O’Brien added that while the effects of misinformation are concerning, it is not the main reason why millions of children are not vaccinated worldwide.
“The main reason is that when you can see all over the world, the reason your child is not vaccinated is because of access to vaccines and access to vaccination services. This is especially important,” O’Brien said.
“They are not vaccinated because they don’t have access,” she said. “They are in dangerous environments. They are difficult to access and in some circumstances the government cannot access those environments.”
The new report has raised concerns about funding global vaccination efforts. The Trump administration has dismantled the US International Development Agency, or USAID, which is affiliated with organizations such as Gavi, a vaccine alliance that provides vaccines. The US has announced plans to cut funding from its Global Fund to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
“We still have a lot to do,” Director Tedros Adhanom Gebrees said in a news release. “The dramatic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about vaccine safety, are threatening to rewind decades of progress. Who is committed to working with partners to develop local solutions and reaching all children who will increase domestic investment and save vaccine lives.”
In 2024, an estimated 89% of infants worldwide received at least one dose of the DTP vaccine, thus earning the same share as in 2023 and 2022, meaning that protection against difteria, tetanus and thoracic remains constant in 2024, according to a new report.
According to a new report, the percentage of children who received the first dose of the measles vaccine remained relatively constant at 84% last year, compared to 83% in 2023 and 2022. Overall, the report shows that 20.6 million children missed the first dose of their daily measles vaccine last year.
Meanwhile, the global proportion of children who received the second measles vaccine for the measles vaccine increased from 73% in 2022 and 73% in 2024 to 76% in 2024, according to a new report.
In the United States, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that US vaccine coverage is declining, and pediatric vaccine coverage is declining this year, with the majority of over 90% this year, more than 90%.
“The good news is that we were able to reach more children with a life-saving vaccine. But millions of children remain unprotected from preventable diseases. That should be worrying to us all.” “We must now act with determination to overcome barriers such as reduced health budgets, vulnerable health systems, and more, along with misinformation and access constraints due to conflict.
O’Brien said there has been “an incredible improvement” in the global coverage of HPV vaccines, which will help protect against human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer and other related diseases.
According to a new report, the percentage of girls who received their first dose increased from 27% in 2024, 27% in 2023, 27% in 2022, 28% in 2024, 28% in 2024, and 21% in 2022 to 14%.
HPV vaccine coverage has been somewhat stable among boys, with 8% receiving their first dose in 2024 and 2023.
“This is a truly bright spot for data, and again, we see an increase in HPV vaccine coverage year by year,” O’Brien said, adding that the recent increase was largely due to vaccine introductions in Nigeria, Bangladesh and four other countries.
Overall, the new report states that there were no major withdrawals in child vaccine coverage around the world, but no major improvements, said Dr. Dan Baruch, director of the Center for Virology, Vaccines and Research at Beth Israel Deacones Medical Center.
“There are too many 14 million children who have not been vaccinated. Vaccination as a child is one of the most cost-effective medical interventions ever developed,” Baruch said. “We hope that global health authorities will prioritize childhood vaccination programs and that funding mechanisms will be developed to ensure the continuity of these programs.”
