GENEVA, July 15 — Global childhood vaccination rates rose slightly in 2025, yet millions of children remained unprotected against preventable diseases as conflict, funding cuts and growing outbreaks undermined immunisation efforts.
According to the latest immunisation estimates released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF today, 90 per cent of infants globally, or nearly 116 million, received at least one dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine, known as DTP, in 2025, while 85 per cent completed all three recommended doses.
“The gains that we are celebrating now at this moment are quite fragile,” said UNICEF’s global immunisation chief, Ephrem Lemango, cautioning that they “can be eroded very easily”.
The number of “zero-dose” or unvaccinated children fell to 13.5 million in 2025 from 14.2 million in 2024, but was still nearly four million higher than the level needed to stay on track to halve the 2019 total by 2030.
Lemango said more than half of the world’s unvaccinated children live in conflict-hit countries such as Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Palestine, despite accounting for only about one-third of global births.
WHO said the global funding cuts, which began in early 2025, have not yet shown up in the data but raises concerns on the 2026 outlook.
“We are seeing real cracks in the system now for immunisation, and we are previewing big risks that are yet to come,” said WHO’s Immunisation, Vaccines and Biologicals Department director Kate O’Brien.
WHO is already seeing the impact of some of these cracks in the form of more measles, diphtheria and cholera outbreaks, O’Brien said.
