Global childhood vaccination coverage edges up in 2025, but 13.5 million infants missed all shots
GENEVA — Global childhood immunization coverage inched forward in 2025 but remains below pre-pandemic levels, with an estimated 13.5 million "zero-dose" infants receiving no vaccine in their first year, according to WHO and UNICEF.
By Source Reporters Newsdesk
Sat, 18 July 2026 · 2 min read
Global childhood immunization coverage inched forward in 2025 but remains below pre-pandemic levels, with an estimated 13.5 million "zero-dose" infants receiving no vaccine in their first year, according to the annual WHO–UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization Coverage (WUENIC) released on 15 July.
About 90% of infants worldwide — nearly 116 million — received at least one dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine, and 85% completed the full three-dose series (https://www.who.int/news/item/15-07-2026-global-childhood-immunization-coverage-inches-forward-despite-conflict-and-hesitancy---unicef--who).
Both indicators rose by just one percentage point from the previous year, leaving global coverage one point below its 2019 level and within the same narrow band it has occupied since 2009. While 13.5 million zero-dose children represent nearly 750,000 fewer than the year before, progress is offset by a rising number of children who start the schedule but do not finish it: an estimated 7.3 million infants received a first DTP dose but dropped out before their first measles shot.
Stalling measles coverage is fuelling outbreaks. Only 84% of children received the first measles dose (MCV1) and 77% the second (MCV2) in 2025 — far short of the 95% threshold needed to prevent spread of the highly contagious virus — and 57 countries reported large or disruptive measles outbreaks during the year, the agencies said.
"Millions of vulnerable children are still being left unprotected due to conflict, displacement, and poverty," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, calling for trust to be rebuilt "where it is fraying." More than half of all zero-dose children live in fragile, conflict-affected or vulnerable (FCV) settings, even though those settings hold only about a third of the world's children; Syria lost 6 points of DTP1 coverage and 12 points of MCV1 in a single year, while Sudan recorded the largest single-country gain, up 35 points on DTP1 and 22 on MCV1.
In middle- and high-income countries, coverage is slipping amid shifting political commitment, structural challenges or rising hesitancy even where vaccines are fully accessible. South Africa's DTP1 coverage has fallen 20 points since 2019, and Bosnia and Herzegovina saw a 23-point drop in MCV1 over the past year after a brief recovery, underscoring that reversal is possible in both directions.
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