United Nations health officials have said more than 14m children did not receive a single vaccine last year – about the same as the year before – with nine countries accounting for more than half of those unprotected children, and with statistics unlikely to improve.
AP reports that the WHO and Unicef said about 89% of children under 12-months-old got a first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2024, the same as in 2023, with about 85% completing the three-dose series, up from 84% in 2023.
Officials acknowledged, however, that the collapse of international aid this year will make it more difficult to reduce the number of unprotected children.
Vaccines prevent 3.5m to 5m deaths a year, according to UN estimates, but the drastic cuts in aid, “coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threatens to unwind decades of progress”, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
UN experts said access to vaccines remained “deeply unequal” and that conflict and humanitarian crises quickly unravelled progress: Sudan had the lowest reported coverage against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, with the nine countries accounting for 52% of all children who missed out on immunisations entirely being Nigeria, India, Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola.
The agencies said coverage against measles rose slightly, with 76% of children worldwide receiving both vaccine doses. But those jab rates need to reach 95% to prevent outbreaks of the extremely contagious disease, they said, noting that 60 countries reported big measles outbreaks last year.
The US is now having its worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, while the disease has also surged across Europe, with 125 000 cases in 2024 – twice as many as the previous year.
Last week, British authorities reported that a child died of measles in a Liverpool hospital. Health officials said that despite years of efforts to raise awareness, only about 84% of children in the UK are protected.
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