WHO ‘extremely concerned’ about growing vaccination scepticism

WHO "extremely concerned" about growing vaccination scepticism Keystone-SDA

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), vaccination scepticism and a collapse in funding for vaccination campaigns pose a major threat to the health of the world's population.

“We are extremely concerned about misinformation and disinformation about immunisation,” says Kate O’Brien, Director of the WHO Immunisation Department. Shrinking aid funds are also “extremely problematic”, added O’Brien at the presentation of the annual report on immunisation rates worldwide by the WHO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

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By far the biggest obstacle to comprehensive immunisation protection for children is conflict and the difficulty of reaching children in very remote regions. Last year, 14.3 million children did not receive a single immunisation in their first year of life, according to the report. The year before, the figure was 14.4 million.

Even last year, there was a lack of funds to support poor countries with immunisation campaigns. The sometimes drastic cuts in development aid this year – by the US and many other countries – are likely to have devastating effects, fear the WHO and UNICEF.

Children at risk

Experts do not wish to comment directly on the position of the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy, who is regarded as a vaccination sceptic. However, they point to the important role of politicians and religious or other leading figures in strengthening, not weakening, confidence in vaccines that have been monitored and tested for decades. “In just over 50 years, 150 million lives have been saved by vaccines,” says Ephrem Lemango from UNICEF. He called on all ministers to emphasise that “killer diseases” such as measles can be prevented through vaccination.

The WHO Regional Office for Europe and UNICEF warn that negligence in vaccination jeopardises children’s health and favours the further spread of measles and whooping cough, for example. Vaccination rates against such diseases had declined slightly in the 53-country region up to Central Asia in 2024 and remained below pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels. There are clear differences between the individual countries.

Significantly more measles outbreaks

In contrast, global coverage with a second measles vaccine dose rose very slightly to 76%. However, 30 million children worldwide are not sufficiently protected against the dangerous disease. According to the WHO, the vaccination rate would have to be at least 95% in every region and every country in order to prevent outbreaks. In 2024, 60 countries experienced severe outbreaks. This is more than twice as many as in 2022. In some countries, outbreaks are due to widespread vaccination scepticism, said O’Bien. It is difficult to estimate how many deaths this will cause. According to estimates, there were more than 107,000 deaths from measles worldwide in 2023.

“Vaccinations save lives, and when coverage drops, diseases spread,” explained Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. Last year alone, almost 300,000 people in the European region fell ill with whooping cough and more than 125,000 with measles, which corresponds to a tripling or doubling of the previous year’s figures. He called on countries to strengthen their local health systems, ensure the availability of vaccines everywhere and combat misinformation.

HPV vaccination success story

According to the 2024 report, vaccination rates have risen slightly worldwide. Around 85% of infants had received three doses of the vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough (DTP). That was a total of 109,000 infants. In the previous year, the figure was marginally lower. DTP vaccination is considered an important indicator of global immunisation coverage.

The HPV vaccination, which prevents cervical cancer, is a global success story, said O’Brien. The proportion of young girls receiving the vaccination had risen by four percentage points to 31% worldwide. The success is mainly due to the fact that Nigeria and Bangladesh have included protection against HPV in their routine immunisation programmes. In 2019, only 17% of teenagers had received the vaccination. The goal is to reach 90% by 2030.

Adapted from German by DeepL/ac

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