Global childhood vaccination coverage held steady in 2024, with 89% of infants worldwide getting at least one dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine, but over 14 million babies still haven’t gotten a single vaccine dose, leaving them vulnerable to preventable diseases, World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported.
About 115 million infants got at least one dose while roughly 109 million got all three doses. That’s 171,000 more children who got at least one vaccine and one million more who completed the full series compared to 2023. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said vaccines save lives but warned that aid cuts and vaccine misinformation threaten to undo decades of progress.
Nearly 20 million babies missed at least one dose of DTP vaccine last year. This includes 14.3 million “zero-dose” children who never got any vaccine at all. That’s 4 million more than the 2024 target needed to stay on track with global immunization goals, and 1.4 million more than in 2019. Many children miss vaccines because they can’t get to health services, face supply issues, live in conflict zones, or hear wrong information about vaccines.
Vaccine access is still very uneven worldwide. Data from 195 countries shows that 131 countries have consistently reached at least 90% of children with the first DTP dose since 2019, but there’s been no movement in expanding this group. Among countries that reached less than 90% in 2019, only 17 managed to increase their coverage rates in the past five years. Meanwhile, in 47 countries, progress is slowing or going backward.
War and crises can quickly undo vaccination gains. A quarter of the world’s babies live in just 26 countries hit by fragility, conflict, or humanitarian crises, yet they make up half of all unvaccinated children globally. In half of these countries, the number of unvaccinated children has grown rapidly from 3.6 million in 2019 to 5.4 million in 2024.
UNICEF’s leader said more kids are getting vaccines, but millions still lack protection. She urged quick action to fix problems like budget cuts, weak health systems, wrong information, and conflict barriers. No child should die from a preventable disease, she said.
