WHO says vaccination of children around the world has stalled

Vaccination of children in the world is stagnating, still below the levels recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) expressed concern about this in a joint report.

"Global vaccination coverage of children has stalled in 2023. As a consequence, about 2.7 million children were not fully vaccinated or under-vaccinated compared to pre-pandemic [COVID-19] levels in 2019," the experts stated.

According to data available to WHO and UNICEF, the number of children who received three doses of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DPT) vaccine last year "stopped at 84% (108 million people) ". At the same time, "the number of children who did not receive a single dose of vaccine increased from 13.9 million in 2022 to 14.5 million in 2023." In addition, 6.5 million children did not receive the third dose of DPT vaccine, which is needed to protect against disease in infancy and early childhood.

More than half of the unvaccinated children live in 31 countries where the health situation is fragile and children are particularly vulnerable to preventable diseases. "These trends, showing that global immunization coverage has remained virtually unchanged since 2022 and, more worryingly, has yet to return to 2019 levels, reflect ongoing challenges related to disruptions in health service delivery, logistical challenges, hesitancy to vaccinate and inequities in access to services," WHO and UNICEF stated.

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