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By Tracy Moses
The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised fresh concerns about the rising number of unvaccinated children in Africa, revealing that a staggering 6.7 million children did not receive any vaccines in 2023.
This was disclosed on Tuesday by the Acting WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Chike Ihekweazu in a statement ahead of the annual vaccination campaign set to take place from April 24 to 30.
The initiative aims to promote equitable access to lifesaving vaccines across the African continent.
The theme for this year’s campaign, “Immunization for All is Humanly Possible,” underscores a powerful call to action, encouraging collective efforts to reach every last child, bolster health systems, and restore the routine immunization services disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Ihekweazu emphasized the importance of this initiative in his statement, “Together, we can reach every last child, strengthen health systems, and restore and expand routine immunization services.”
Despite the progress made over the past five decades under the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), the African continent still faces significant immunization challenges. One in five children in Africa remains under-vaccinated, and measles outbreaks continue to be a persistent problem.
Celebrating the remarkable global achievement of 154 million lives saved through vaccination over the past 50 years, Dr. Ihekweazu noted that substantial gaps in vaccine coverage and access still exist, particularly in remote and conflict-prone regions.
Dr. Ihekweazu also highlighted encouraging data from the African region, where cases of circulating variant poliovirus type 1 (cVDPV1) dropped by 93% and cVDPV2 declined by 65% between 2023 and 2024. This progress demonstrates that the eradication of poliovirus is within reach, but continued efforts are required, especially in high-risk areas like the Lake Chad Basin and the Horn of Africa.
In line with global efforts to expand immunization, Dr. Ihekweazu referred to the midterm review of the Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), calling for accelerated progress to close immunity gaps. He urged governments and their partners to integrate vaccines into primary healthcare systems and speed up the implementation of immunization programs.
In February 2025, a high-level meeting co-hosted by WHO, the African Union Commission, the Government of Sierra Leone, Gavi, and UNICEF reviewed the progress made since the 2017 Addis Declaration on Immunization. While political commitment has improved, persistent challenges, such as funding gaps, health inequities, and weak data systems, remain a barrier to achieving full vaccine coverage in Africa.
Dr. Ihekweazu stressed the importance of renewed political will and collaboration to turn commitments into action, focusing on several key areas: increasing domestic investment in immunization, expanding vaccine access through strengthened health systems, addressing misinformation and vaccine hesitancy, and ensuring sustained support from global partners to achieve equity. He concluded with a call to action, stressing “Vaccinated communities are healthy communities, and no one should be left behind.”
WHO’s message comes at a time when countries like Uganda, Angola, and Sierra Leone are stepping up their vaccination efforts. Uganda recently launched its largest malaria vaccine rollout, while Angola vaccinated over a million people in a bid to control cholera, and Sierra Leone began an Ebola vaccination drive for frontline health workers.
African Vaccination Week 2025 serves as a reminder that while progress has been made, achieving universal vaccine coverage across Africa remains a challenging task. WHO and its partners continue to be dedicated to ensuring that immunization for all becomes a reality for every African child.
This echoes the concerns raised during previous vaccination campaigns, such as the 2022 African Vaccination Week, which also highlighted the challenges of immunization in the context of COVID-19. The WHO, along with its partners, has been working for decades to address these challenges, emphasizing the need for better infrastructure, funding, and political commitment to ensure that no child is left behind in the fight for equitable health.