Published on: 2026-07-15
Source: United Nations
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
July 14, 2026 Healthcare
Global efforts to vaccinate children have finally begun to bear fruit: immunization rates are slowly increasing after a setback caused by the coronavirus pandemic. However, behind this cautious optimism lies a troubling reality – millions of children remain unprotected against outbreaks of measles and other dangerous diseases.
According to the annual report published by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2025, 90 percent of infants – nearly 116 million – received at least one dose of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. A full three-dose course was completed by 85 percent of the babies. This is one percent more than the previous year, but still below the 2019 level.
The most vulnerable group is the so-called “zero-dose children,” who have not received a single vaccine. In 2025, their number decreased to 13.5 million, which is almost 750 thousand fewer than the previous year. However, this progress is undermined by another trend: the number of children who start the vaccination course but do not complete it is increasing.
To help every child
An estimated 7.3 million infants received the first vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis but never received the first dose of the measles vaccine. As a result, measles vaccination coverage stagnated at 84 percent for the first dose and 77 percent for the second dose, far from the 95 percent needed to prevent outbreaks of the disease. Consequently, in 2025, 57 countries reported major measles epidemics.
“Global vaccination rates have recovered after the decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, but millions of children remain unprotected due to conflicts, displacement, and poverty,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. She called for help for every child and restoring trust where it has been undermined.
Geography of vaccination
The picture across regions is uneven. South Asia and the Americas have fully recovered their indicators and even improved them. Vaccination levels in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Europe are increasing, but these regions still lag behind pre-COVID levels. Meanwhile, the Western part of the Pacific region, on the contrary, has rolled back and is now the furthest from the 2019 indicators.
More than half of all “zero-dose children” live in countries affected by conflict or political instability, even though only a third of the world’s child population resides there. Under such conditions, vaccination programs are literally collapsing before our eyes: Syria lost six percentage points in the first dose coverage against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough, and 12 points in the first dose coverage against measles within a year. But there are also positive examples: Sudan showed the greatest progress in the world, increasing the coverage of the first dose against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough by 35 percent.
In middle- and high-income countries, the problems are different – political volatility, systemic failures, and growing parental hesitancy. South Africa has lost 20 percentage points in the first dose coverage for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis since 2019. And Bosnia and Herzegovina’s rates, after a record increase in measles vaccination coverage in 2024, plummeted by 23 points in 2025.
“Every child – regardless of whether they were born in conditions of peace or war – deserves the protection that vaccines provide,” emphasized WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “It is one of the most reliable and fair ways to preserve children’s health.”
“For everyone, everywhere, and at any age”
Over the past 25 years, the number of “zero-dose children” has decreased by 40 percent thanks to investments, effective work by healthcare professionals, and strengthening trust in society. But the foundation on which this progress was built is starting to crack. International health funding is decreasing, and data collection systems – a key tool for identifying unvaccinated children – are deteriorating. In 2025, countries reported the results of only 18 national vaccination surveys – three times fewer than the previous year.
UNICEF and WHO warn: without urgent measures, the world will not be able to achieve the main goal of the global strategy – to reduce the number of ‘zero-dose children’ and ensure access to vaccines for all, everywhere, and at any age.
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