14.3 million babies remain without vaccination in 2024 and the vaccination was lost; That is 4 million more than the 2024 target to stay on the road with the objectives of the 2030 immunization agenda and 1.4 million more than in 2019, the year of reference to measure progress.
The World Health/UNICEF organization, in new national immunization coverage data published on Monday, said that almost 20 million babies lost at least one dose of a vaccine containing DTP last year, including 14.3 million children “zero dose” who never received a single dose of any vaccine.
According to the statement, in 2024, 89% of babies worldwide, approximately 115 million, received at least one dose of vaccination containing diphtheria, tetanus and the fault cough (DTP), and 85%, approximately 109 million, completed the three doses.
In addition, compared to 2023, around 171,000 more children received at least one vaccine, and one more million completed the DTP series of three complete doses, indicating a modest gain obtained by the countries that work to protect children, even in increasing challenges.
The CEO of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a comment, said it is an encouraging to see a continuous increase in the number of children who vaccinate, although we still have a lot of work to do.
He said: “The drastic cuts in help, together with the wrong information on vaccine safety, threaten to relax decades of progress. Who remains committed to working with our partners to support countries to develop local solutions and increase national investment to reach all children with the power of vaccines to save life.”
In a comment, the Executive Director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, declared that more children were achieved in 2024 than the previous year, a sign of determination and progress, but reduced health budgets, fragile health systems, growing conflict and the propagation of erroneous information are warning signs of a possible setback.
He declared: “The times are changing, and we must now act to protect millions of children from diseases that we know how to prevent.”
WHO and UNICEF, however, asked the relevant governments and partners to close the financing gap for the next strategic cycle of Gavi (2026-2030) to protect millions of children in low-income countries and global health safety and strengthen immunization in fragile conflicts and environments to reach more children in zero doses and prevent outbreaks of mortal diseases.
They also suggested prioritizing the strategies led by local and national investment, integrating immunization firmly into primary health systems to close capital gaps; counteract erroneous information and further increase the absorption of the vaccine through evidence -based approaches; and invest in stronger data and disease surveillance systems to guide high impact immunization programs.
The data from 195 countries show that 131 countries have constantly reached at least 90% of children with the first dose of the DTP vaccine since 2019, but there has not been a significant movement in the expansion of this group.
Among the countries that reached less than 90% in 2019, only 17 managed to increase their coverage rates in the last five years. Meanwhile, in 47 countries, progress stops or worsens. This includes 22 countries that achieved and exceeded 90% in 2019, but since then they have decreased.
Data show that humanitarian conflict and crises can quickly erode vaccination progress. A quarter of the babies in the world live in just 26 countries affected by humanitarian fragility, conflict or crisis, but represent half of all children not vaccinated worldwide.
At the same time, in half of these countries, the number of non -vaccinated babies has expanded rapidly from 3.6 million in 2019 to 5.4 million in 2024, which underlines the need for humanitarian responses to include immunization.
The coverage against measles also improved, with 84% of the children who received the first dose and 76% received the second dose, which shows a slight increase compared to the previous year. It is estimated that 2 million more children were reached in 2024, but the general coverage rate is well below the 95% necessary in each community to prevent outbreaks.
This results in more than 30 million children to remain subprotected against measles, which leads to larger or disruptive outbreaks. In 2024, the number of countries that experienced large or disruptive measles outbreaks increased strongly to 60, almost doubled from 33 in 2022.
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