The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), and Gavi warn that immunization efforts are at risk due to population growth, funding cuts, humanitarian crises, and misinformation. Millions of adults, children, and adolescents are at risk during the World Immunization Week (24 to 30 April). Vaccine-preventable diseases such as meningitis, measles, yellow fever, and diphtheria are at risk of re-emerging.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, has said that vaccines have protected more than 150 million lives over the last 5 years. However, global health funding cuts jeopardize these benefits since vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks are spreading worldwide and exposing countries to increased costs of treating the disease.
Measles cases have surged since 2021 due to reduced vaccination coverage during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, a projected 10.3 million cases were recorded, about a 20% increase in comparison with 2022. Agencies warn that this increasing rate may continue till 2024 and 2025 as the outbreaks spread around the globe. In the last 12 months, 138 nations have documented measles cases.
In Africa, meningitis cases increased significantly in 2024 and continued in 2025. In the past 3 months, above 5500 cases and over 200 deaths were recorded across 22 countries. This implies about 26000 cases and 1400 fatalities in 24 countries in the last year. Yellow fever is also increasing, with 124 confirmed incidences across 12 countries in 2024. Yellow fever epidemics in the WHO region of the Americas have been verified since the start of the year, with 131 cases reported in the four countries.
Global funding cuts lead to measles outbreaks in lower-middle and low-income countries, with over half of them seeing delays to vaccination campaigns, regular immunization, and supply access because of decreased donor funding. Over half of the countries have reported confronting disease surveillance, such as vaccine-preventable diseases, and the number of children who miss the routine immunization is increasing. About 12.9 million in 2019, 14.5 million in 2023, and 13.9 million in 2022 children have missed routine vaccination. Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director, said that global funding cuts are significantly affecting the capacity to immunize around 15 million vulnerable children in unstable and conflict-affected countries from measles.
The UNICEF, WHO, Gavi, and other partners have worked together to increase the vaccine availability and enhance vaccination systems in nations and saved about 4.2 million lives yearly from 14 diseases. The African Region was eliminated from meningitis A, and a new vaccine against 5 strains of meningitis has been developed for more protection. Progress has been made to reduce yellow fever cases and fatalities by increasing the routine immunization rate and emergency vaccination. However, current outbreaks have highlighted the risk in areas with no recorded cases, low routine immunization coverage, and gaps in the preventive campaign.
WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi are urging the public, parents, and politicians to increase immunization and explain the importance of sustained investment in the immunization program. CEO of Gavi, Dr. Sania Nishtar, said that the global community is concerned about the increasing epidemics of extremely infectious diseases. Encouragingly, Gavi’s upcoming strategies phase outlines a clear plan to improve our defence by increasing the investments in global vaccine stocks and implementing targeted preventive immunization in countries that are most affected by yellow fever, measles, and meningitis. These important starts will be jeopardized if Gavi is not fully financed for the next five years, and we urge our funders to support our aim to keep everyone safe from preventable disease.
Reference: World Health Organization. Increases in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks threaten years of progress, warn WHO, UNICEF, and Gavi. Published April 24, 2025. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://www.who.int/news/item/24-04-2025-increases-in-vaccine-preventable-disease-outbreaks-threaten-years-of-progress–warn-who–unicef–gavi
