On 26 June 2025 The Citizen reported that, according to a recent study published in The Lancet, disruptions to childhood immunisationbetween 2020 and 2023 resulted in nearly 13m additional children who have never been vaccinated. The study analysed childhood immunisation rates across 204 countries and territories. In 2023, more than half of the globe's 15.7m completely unvaccinated children lived in just eight countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Due to faltering vaccination rates the European Union reported that cases of measles were 10 times higher in 2024 than in 2023. In the United States, a measles outbreak surged past 1,000 cases this year.
“Meanwhile, polio, a disease long eradicated in many parts of the world thanks to vaccination, is seeing a resurgence. Researchers have warned that these setbacks pose a direct threat to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) ambitious 2030 for 90% of the world's children to receive essential vaccines and to halve the number of ‘zero-dose’ children by the end of the decade.”