Global infant vaccination levels have stabilized after shrinking during the COVID-19 crisis, the UN said yesterday, but it warned that misinformation and drastic aid cuts were deepening dangerous coverage gaps and putting millions at risk.
Last year, 85 percent of infants globally, or 109 million, had received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP), with the third dose serving as a key marker for global immunization coverage, data published by the UN health and children’s agencies showed.
That marked an increase of 1 percentage point and 1 million more children covered than a year earlier, in what the agencies described as “modest” gains.
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At the same time, nearly 20 million infants missed at least one of their DTP doses last year, including 14.3 million so-called zero-dose” children who never received a single shot.
While a slight improvement over 2023, when there were 14.5 million zero-dose children, it was 1.4 million more than in 2019 — before the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on global vaccination programs.
“The good news is that we have managed to reach more children with life-saving vaccines,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a joint statement.
“But millions of children remain without protection against preventable diseases,” she said. “That should worry us all.”
The data showed that nine countries accounted for 52 percent of all children who missed out on immunizations entirely: Nigeria, India, Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola.
Meanwhile, the WHO said that the world was “off track” for reaching its goal of ensuring that 90 percent of all children and adolescents receive essential vaccines by 2030.
“Drastic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threaten to unwind decades of progress,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Yesterday’s report cautioned that vaccine access remains deeply unequal, with widespread conflicts eroding efforts to boost vaccine coverage.
Dramatic cuts to international aid by the US in particular, but also by other countries, could further worsen the situation.
“Our ability to respond to outbreaks in nearly 50 countries has been disrupted due to the funding cuts,” UNICEF Association Director of Immunization Ephrem Lemango told reporters.
While lack of access was the main cause of low coverage globally, the agencies also highlighted the threat of misinformation.
Dwindling trust in “hard-earned evidence around the safety of the vaccines” is contributing to dangerous immunity gaps and outbreaks, WHO Director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals Kate O’Brien told reporters.
Experts have sounded the alarm in the US especially, where US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr has himself long been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation, including about the measles vaccine, even as the US grapples with its worst measles epidemic in 30 years.
Last year, 60 countries experienced large and disruptive outbreaks of the highly contagious disease, nearly doubling from 33 in 2022, the report showed.
An estimated 2 million more children worldwide were vaccinated against measles last year than the year before, but the global coverage rate remained far below the 95 percent needed to avert its spread.
On a positive note, the report showed that vaccine coverage against a range of diseases had inched up last year in the 57 low-income countries supported by the vaccine alliance Gavi.
“In 2024, lower-income countries protected more children than ever before,” Gavi CEO Sania Nishtar said.
However, the data also indicated “signs of slippage” emerging in upper-middle and high-income countries where coverage had previously been at least 90 percent.
“Even the smallest drops in immunization coverage can have devastating consequences,” O’Brien said.
Additional reporting by AP
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