The vaccination of children threatened by the cuts in help and disinformation, worries the UN

The world’s vaccination rates worldwide have stabilized after decreasing during the COVID crisis, the UN said on Tuesday, but disinformation and cuts in international aid represent new threats.

In 2024, 85% of children in the age class who have to receive the diphtheria, tetanus and dubed vaccine (DTC) had received the three doses (109 million), the third dose serving as a key marker for global vaccination coverage, according to data published by the United Nations health and childhood agencies.

It is one more percentage point than in 2023, or one million additional children. “Modest” gains while the challenges are numerous, according to the UN.

In 2024, 14.3 million children worldwide were called “zero doses”: they had not received any dose of vaccine, a figure in very slight decrease since they were 14.5 million two years ago. But the figure remains greater than that recorded in 2019 (1.4 million), before the Pandemic of COVID-19 came to disturb the health services.

Derive

“The good news is that we have managed to vaccinate more children with vaccines that save lives” but “millions of children remain without protection against avoidable diseases,” noted the director general of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, in a statement published with the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the WHO, the world is “poorly left” to achieve the objective of guaranteeing 90% coverage in children and adolescents for key vital vaccines in 2030.

“The drastic cuts in the aid, coupled with disinformation on the security of vaccines, threaten to notify decades of progress,” said WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in the press release.

The report also shows that access to vaccines remains very uneven and that conflicts ruin the efforts made to improve vaccination coverage. This situation could still worsen with the reduction of international aid, including the United States.

“Our ability to respond to epidemics in nearly 50 countries has been disrupted by budget cuts,” said Ephrem Lemango, responsible for vaccination at UNICEF, at a press conference.

A vaccinosceptic in the United States

Lack of access to vaccines is the main cause of the low vaccine coverage worldwide, but UN agencies also highlight the threat posed by disinformation on vaccines.

The reduction of confidence vis-à-vis “the safety of vaccines” contributes to a lack of collective immunity which can be dangerous and to the development of epidemiological outbreaks, explained Kate O’Brien, responsible for vaccination to WHO, to journalists.

Experts alert in particular the situation in the United States, where the Minister of Health Robert Kennedy Jr, a notorious vaccinosceptic, has started a deep overhaul of the American health authorities and their vaccine policy. He was notably accused of having disseminated false information about the measles vaccine, while the United States has been undergoing the worst epidemic in more than 30 years since the beginning of 2025.

In 2024, 60 countries were struck by “important or disruptive” epidemics of measles, almost twice as much as in 2022 (33), according to the report.

However, two million additional children were vaccinated against this disease last year compared to 2023. But the global vaccine coverage rate is far from the 95% level to prevent epidemics.

The report also reports good news, with an increase in vaccination coverage against a series of diseases in the 57 countries supported by Gavi, which supports vaccination in the poorest countries.

AFP

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