Childhood vaccinations at risk due to cuts and inequality, study says
Efforts to vaccinate children against deadly diseases are at risk around the world due to economic inequality, disruptions caused by Covid-19 and anti-vaccine misinformation, a survey warned on Wednesday (25, local date).
These trends increase the threat of future outbreaks of preventable diseases, while deep cuts in international aid threaten progress previously made in vaccinating the world’s children.
A new study published in The Lancet analyzed childhood vaccination rates in 204 countries and territories. It is estimated that a World Health Organization (WHO) immunization program has saved around 154 million lives over the past 50 years.
And vaccination coverage against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, polio and tuberculosis doubled between 1980 and 2023, according to the international team of researchers.
However, progress slowed in the 2010s, when measles vaccination rates declined in about half of countries, with the largest decline detected in Latin America.
In this region, there was a 12% reduction in children vaccinated with the first dose against measles in Argentina.
On the other hand, in more than half of all high-income countries there was a decrease in coverage of at least one vaccine dose.
Then came the covid-19 pandemic.
Routine vaccination services were massively disrupted, resulting in nearly 13 million additional children not receiving any vaccine doses between 2020 and 2023, the study found.
This disparity persisted particularly in poorer countries.
By 2023, more than half of the world's 15.7 million completely unvaccinated children lived in just eight countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, the study found.
Brazil is on this list, in last place, with 452 thousand unvaccinated minors.
In the European Union, ten times more cases of measles were recorded last year compared to 2023.
In the United States, a measles outbreak surpassed 1,000 cases in 30 states last month, which is already more than were recorded in the entire year of 2024.
Cases of polio, long eradicated in many areas thanks to vaccination, have been rising in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Papua New Guinea is currently facing an outbreak of the disease.
“Routine childhood vaccines are among the most powerful and cost-effective public health interventions available,” said Jonathan Mosser, lead author of the study and a member of the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
“But persistent global inequalities, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and growing misinformation and vaccine hesitancy have all contributed to stalled progress on immunization,” he said in a statement.
On the other hand, “growing numbers of displaced people and inequalities persist due to armed conflict, political instability, economic uncertainty and climate crises,” added Emily Haeuser, lead author of the study, also from IHME.
The researchers warned that such setbacks could threaten the WHO's goal of immunizing 90% of the world's children and adolescents by 2030 with vaccines considered essential.
The WHO also aims to halve the number of children who have not received any vaccine doses by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.
So far, only 18 countries have managed to achieve that goal, according to the study, which was funded by the Gates Foundation and the Gavi vaccine alliance.
The global health community was also impacted by the Trump administration's decision to drastically reduce U.S. foreign aid earlier this year.
“For the first time in decades, the number of children dying around the world is likely to increase this year rather than decrease due to massive cuts in foreign aid,” Bill Gates said in a separate statement on Tuesday.
“This is a tragedy,” said the Microsoft co-founder, who has pledged $1.6 billion to Gavi, which is holding a fundraising summit in Brussels on Wednesday.
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