Global childhood vaccination has not recovered from the shock of the pandemic.
WHO and UNICEF urge countries to do more to reduce the number of children who have not received any vaccine doses.
BarcelonaThe outbreak of COVID-19 triggered the worst health crisis of the 21st century, and some of its serious consequences are still being felt five years later. One of these is the significant drop in routine vaccination rates—that is, the vaccines included in pediatric schedules to protect newborns from preventable diseases, such as diphtheria, whooping cough, polio, and measles. According to data published Tuesday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, global childhood immunization coverage has improved slightly compared to 2023, when they warned that had stagnated, but last year's figures are still below those of 2019.
Thus, health authorities warn that the improvement is not enough to make progress towards the goals of the 2030 Vaccination Agenda, and call on countries to make efforts to reduce the number of children2. 1.4 million more unvaccinated children than in 2019, and approximately 4 million more are missing to reach the proposed target in five years. Furthermore, the poorest countries are those that show the least signs of recovery: they are the furthest from recovering pre-vaccination coverage- the growing number of children who will be born and who will be exposed to the risk of not receiving the vaccines that could protect them against potentially fatal diseases," warns Quique Bassat, director general of the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), in statements to Science Media Center (SMC).
For the expert, it is essential to maintain the international aid programs that facilitate the arrival of vaccines to these countries at a time when "their financing and sustainability are threatened" by the cuts that the Donald Trump administration is making in science and international cooperation. "We are at risk of reversing the progress achieved after many years of collective effort by several decades," he warns.
"Political commitment"
Ángel Hernández, a pediatrician and collaborator with the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics and the Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics, also explains to SMC that it is necessary to strengthen vaccination in countries with social and economic stability to, at the very least, maintain and improve current coverage. "However, the greatest challenges come from the need to achieve broad and equitable vaccination in countries experiencing mass displacement due to political instability, armed conflict, economic uncertainty, and climate crises," Hernández insists. In this regard, he calls for a "stable political and financial commitment over time" to maintain a primary care system that provides equity to health programs such as vaccination programs.