Reports from the new national immunisation coverage data released on Tuesday by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF indicate that more than 14 million children did not receive a single vaccine last year, with Nigeria accounting for the largest share.
The report shows that nine countries accounted for more than half of those unprotected children.
Nigeria recorded 2.1 million zero-dose children, followed by India with 990,000, and Sudan, 838,000. Others are DRC, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Angola, and Pakistan.
The list of countries with the most zero-dose children contains the same countries in 2024 as in 2023.
The estimates show that in 2024, 89% of infants globally, about 115 million received at least one dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP)-containing vaccine, and 85% roughly 109 million completed all three doses.
Compared to 2023, around 171 000 more children received at least one vaccine, and one million more completed the full three-dose DTP series.
Still, nearly 20 million infants missed at least one dose of DTP-containing vaccine last year, including 14.3 million “zero-dose” children who never received a single dose of any vaccine, 4 million more than the 2024 target needed to stay on track with Immunization Agenda 2030 goals, and 1.4 million more than in 2019, the baseline year for measuring progress.
“Millions of children remain without protection against preventable diseases, and that should worry us all. We must act now with determination to overcome barriers like shrinking health budgets, fragile health systems along with misinformation and access constraints because of conflicts”,Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director said.
Russell stressed that “no child should die from a disease we know how to prevent.”
Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General stressed that vaccines save lives, allowing individuals, families, communities, economies and nations to flourish.
“It’s encouraging to see a continued increase in the number of children being vaccinated, although we still have a lot of work to do. Drastic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threaten to unwind decades of progress”, he said.
The DG noted that children often remain un- or under-vaccinated due to a combination of factors, such as limited access to immunization services, disrupted supply, conflict and instability, or misinformation about vaccines.
According to the report, data from 195 countries show that 131 countries have consistently reached at least 90% of children with the first dose of DTP vaccine since 2019, but there has been no significant movement in expanding this group.
The data also shows conflict and humanitarian crises can quickly erode vaccination progress, noting that a quarter of the world’s infants live in just 26 countries affected by fragility, conflict, or humanitarian crises, yet they make up half of all unvaccinated children globally.
