Fast Facts:

TWELVE things you didn’t know about immunization

  1. Two-thirds of unvaccinated children live in fragile countries or those affected by conflict. Between 2010 and 2016, Syria saw the sharpest decline in vaccinated children, with coverage*[i]falling by 38 percentage points over this period. Second is Ukraine where coverage decreased by 33 percentage points.
  1. A number of countries have seen a significant increase in the number of vaccinated children since 2010, driving most of the gains in immunization coverage this decade, including India, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, Philippines, Mexico, United Republic of Tanzania, Vietnam, Turkey and Sudan. In India, the number of unvaccinated children[ii] reduced by 45 per cent, from 5.3 million in 2010 to 2.9 million in 2016.
  1. As of 2016, six countries accounted for half of the world’s unimmunized children*: Nigeria (18%); India (15%); Pakistan (7%); Indonesia (5%); Ethiopia (4%); and Democratic Republic of the Congo (3%).
  1. The top 10 countries where vaccination coverage*, in percentage points, has increased between 2010 and 2016 are Palau (29%), Malta (21%), Democratic Republic of the Congo (19%), Comoros (17%), Azerbaijan (16%), Ethiopia (16%), Timor-Leste (13%), Barbados (11%), Costa Rica (9%) and India (9%).
  1. In 2017, Yemen witnessed one of the worst cholera epidemics on record with over a million suspected cases, almost 29 per cent of them among are children under five. Around 5.2 million people received two doses of the oral cholera vaccine in South Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Philippines, Nigeria, Chad, Haiti, Cameroon, Zambia and Bangladesh during cholera outbreaks or as part of preventive campaigns.
  1. Diphtheria, a disease that is only rarely seen thanks to immunization, is making a come-back. In response to an outbreak among Rohingya refugees – in which three out of four people affected were children – UNICEF supported several large vaccination campaigns in southern Bangladesh, reaching close to half a million children.
  1. In 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio a year. Since then, over 2.5 billion children have been vaccinated against the disease. Today, the world is closer than ever to eradicating polio, with only 22 cases in two countries last year. More than 400 million children will be vaccinated this year.
  1. The lives of an estimated 20 million children have been saved through measles immunization between 2000 and 2016.
  1. A billion people will be vaccinated against Yellow fever in Africa by 2026 - almost half of them children under 15 years of age.Since 2001, the production of the yellow fever vaccine has quadrupled from 20 million to 80 million doses annually, and isexpected to increase in the coming years.
  1. As of 2016, an estimated 86 per cent of children less than one year of age were fully vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, compared to 52 per cent some 30 years ago.
  1. In 2017, UNICEF procured 2.4 billion vaccine doses worth $1.3 billion, reaching 45 per cent of the world’s children.
  1. Thanks to vaccines, maternal and neonatal tetanus, which is extremely deadly amongst newborns, has been eliminated in all but 15 countries. Ethiopia, Haiti and Philippines eliminated the disease in 2017.

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The data is based on WHO/UNICEF estimates of national immunization.

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[i] Coverage is measured by the percentage of infants receiving all three required doses of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis-containing vaccine.

[ii]Number of children receiving all three required doses of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis-containing vaccine.