The vaccination of children against potentially deadly diseases run out of steam in the world, under the effect of persistent economic inequalities, disturbances linked to the Covid era and vaccination disinformation, endangering millions of lives, warns a study published on Wednesday.
• Read also: The United States approves a very promising preventive treatment against HIV
• Read also: Denounced at UPAC: this pharmacist would have falsified hundreds of vaccine evidence
This world panorama of infant vaccination from 1980 to 2023, published in The Lancetprovides updated estimates for 204 countries and territories, upstream of a conference of Donors of the Alliance of the Vaccine (GAVI) on Wednesday in Brussels.
Over the past fifty years have experienced unprecedented advances, and the essential vaccination program of the World Health Organization has saved some 154 million lives of children. The vaccination coverage against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, darling, measles, polio, tuberculosis, for example doubled between 1980 and 2023 in the world, retrace researchers.
But “these long -term progress mask recent challenges and notable disparities,” notes the medical journal.
Vaccinations against measles have decreased between 2010 and 2019 in almost half of the countries, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the proportion of children who have received at least one dose of diphtheria, tetanus, darling, measles, polio or tuberculosis has declined in most rich countries.
It was then that the Pandemic of COVID-19 struck, exacerbating the difficulties.
Examples of its impacts: between 2020 and 2023, nearly 13 million additional children have never received the slightest dose of vaccine, and around 15.6 million children did not have the three full doses of diphtheria, tetanus and checked or against measles.
AFP
And great disparities remain, especially to the detriment of the poorest countries. In 2023, more than half of the 15.7 million non-vaccinated children in the world lived in only eight countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
“Systematic vaccination of children is one of the most powerful and profitable public health actions,” said Jonathan Mosser, principal author of the study and member of the US Institute of Metrology and Health Evaluation (IHME).
Epidemics increasing
“But the persistent global inequalities, the challenges posed by the Cavid pandemic, the increase in disinformation and vaccination hesitation have all contributed to weakening the progress of vaccination,” he said in a statement.
In addition, “an increasing number of displaced people and growing disparities due to armed conflicts, political volatility, economic uncertainty, climatic crises,” pointed Emily Haeuser, another author and researcher of the IHME.
Result: epidemics of avoidable diseases thanks to vaccines increase in the world, endangering lives and exposing the countries affected to increasing expenses to face it.
The European Union has thus recorded almost ten times more measles in 2024 than in 2023, and the United States exceeded 1000 cases confirmed last month, already much more than in the whole year 2024. And a growing number of cases of polio-long erased by several parts of the globe by vaccination-is reported in Pakistan and Afghanistan, while an epidemic touches the Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée.
All of these setbacks may prevent the global WHO vaccination goals for 2030. Among them: administering children and adolescents essential vaccines at 90%.
The WHO also targets a reduction in half the number of children of less than one year having received no dose of the diphtheria vaccine, tetanus and whooping compared to 2019. Only 18 countries have reached it so far, according to the study, funded by the Gates Foundation and Gavi.
The World Health Community is also shaken since the drastic cuts of the administration of President Donald Trump with the American help in early 2025.
“For the first time in decades, the number of children who die in the world will probably increase this year, instead of decreasing,” said Bill Gates in a separate statement released on Tuesday.
“It’s a tragedy,” added Microsoft’s co -founder, promising $ 1.6 billion in Gavi for the conference. Its foundation also helps to finance the WHO or the poliomyelitis group.
