The World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the global vaccine alliance Gavi issued a joint statement during World Immunization Week (24-30 April) warning that increasing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are increasingly threatening decades of progress in immunization.
Vaccination is one of the most effective methods of combating disease and preventing death. According to WHO estimates, the global vaccination campaign has saved at least 154 million lives over the past half century, equivalent to six lives every minute. Optimal vaccine development, implementation and coverage could reduce antibiotic use by 22 percent, or 2.5 billion daily doses annually. However, the current situation with immunization of the population is not the best.
The joint statement highlights that outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, meningitis and yellow fever are spreading around the world. Cases of infections that had been virtually eradicated in many countries, such as whooping cough and diphtheria, are on the rise. According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, this threat is largely due to reduced funding for health, while treating such diseases and containing outbreaks is much more expensive than vaccination. Misinformation, population growth and humanitarian crises also contribute.
The situation with measles, for which immunization rates have fallen during the Covid pandemic, is particularly alarming. The number of cases in 2023 has increased by 20 percent to 10.3 million compared to the previous year. They have occurred in 138 countries, with 61 of them reporting serious outbreaks. Meningitis and yellow fever cases are also rising sharply, mainly on the African continent, with four outbreaks of the latter recorded in the WHO Region of the Americas since the beginning of the year.
A recent accounting of 108 countries with UNICEF offices, however, found that funding cuts have severely disrupted vaccine supply and delivery chains in nearly half of them. As UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell noted, 14.5 million children worldwide will not have received all the vaccinations they are supposed to receive in 2023, significantly more than in previous years. Most of them live in countries experiencing instability or armed conflict.
Against this backdrop, WHO, UNICEF and Gavi continue to work to increase access to vaccines through primary care. Every year, these drugs prevent an estimated 4.2 million deaths from 14 infections. Meningitis A has been virtually eliminated in the so-called meningitis belt. In the African region, where cervical cancer rates are highest in the world, human papillomavirus vaccination coverage increased from 21 percent to 40 percent between 2020 and 2023. Global pneumococcal vaccination coverage has also increased. A separate achievement has been the regional rollout of malaria vaccination in 20 African countries, with Cameroon being the first.
In closing, the organizations called on parents, communities, and politicians to step up their support for immunization. They noted that it remains the best investment in health, delivering 54 times more than it costs. Gavi’s current goal is to raise $9 billion to fund a campaign to vaccinate 500 million children and save at least eight million lives between 2026 and 2030.
Previously, WHO experts conducted an assessment across all regions of the world and compiled a list of 17 infectious agents, the development and introduction of vaccines against which is a priority task.