Childhood vaccinations in decline worldwide: study warns of risks for millions of children
The past fifty years have seen unprecedented progress, and the World Health Organization's (WHO) essential immunization program has saved some 154 million children's lives. Vaccination coverage against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, polio, and tuberculosis, for example, doubled worldwide between 1980 and 2023, the researchers report. But "this long-term progress masks recent challenges and notable disparities," the medical journal notes.
Measles vaccinations declined between 2010 and 2019 in nearly half of all countries, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the proportion of children who received at least one dose of vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, polio, or tuberculosis declined in most wealthy countries. Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck, exacerbating the challenges. Examples of its impacts: between 2020 and 2023, nearly 13 million additional children never received a single dose of vaccine, and approximately 15.6 million children did not receive the full three doses of vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis or against measles.
And vast disparities remain, especially to the detriment of the poorest countries. In 2023, more than half of the world's 15.7 million unvaccinated children lived in just eight countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. "Routine childhood immunization is one of the most powerful and cost-effective public health interventions," said Jonathan Mosser, lead author of the study and a member of the U.S. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
"But persistent global inequalities, the challenges posed by the Covid pandemic, increasing misinformation and vaccine hesitancy have all contributed to weakening vaccination progress," Jonathan Mosser summarized in a press release. Added to this are "a growing number of displaced people and widening disparities due to armed conflict, political volatility, economic uncertainty, and climate crises," pointed out Emily Haeuser, another author and IHME researcher.
As a result, outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are increasing worldwide, putting lives at risk and exposing affected countries to rising costs to respond. The European Union, for example, recorded nearly ten times more measles cases in 2024 than in 2023, and the United States surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases last month—already far more than in all of 2024. And a growing number of cases of polio—long wiped out in many parts of the world by vaccination—are being reported in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while an outbreak is affecting Papua New Guinea.
"A tragedy"All these setbacks threaten to prevent the WHO from achieving its 2030 global immunization targets. These include reaching 90% of children and adolescents with essential vaccines. The WHO also aims to halve the number of children under one year of age who have not received a single dose of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine compared to 2019. Only 18 countries have achieved this so far, according to the study, funded by the Gates Foundation and Gavi. The global health community has also been reeling from President Donald Trump's administration's drastic cuts to US international aid in early 2025.
