Preventable diseases with a vaccine, such as measles, meningitis and yellow fever, are increasing in a context of misinformation and cuts in international aid, the UN warned on Wednesday the UN and the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi).
“Vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives in the last five decades,” said the director of the world Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on the occasion of World Immunization Week.
“The financial cuts that affect world health endanger these achievements achieved with so much effort. Epidemics of preventable diseases through vaccination are increasing worldwide, which put lives in danger and expose countries to increasing costs to treat these diseases and respond to epidemics,” he added.
Since 2021, measles cases are increasing. In 2023, it is estimated that 10.3 million people contracted it, 20% more than a year earlier.
Advertisement – Scroll to Continue
In the last 12 months, 138 countries have notified cases of measles, including the United States. In total, 61 of those countries registered significant epidemics, “the highest number since 2019,” according to a WHO, UNICEF and Gavi statement.
Cases of meningitis and yellow fever also increased considerably in Africa in 2024.
These new upward trends occur in a moment of misinformation about vaccines, increased humanitarian crises, demographic growth and also budget cuts, the statement said, not to mention the United States’s decision to eliminate much of its external aid.
Advertisement – Scroll to Continue
“The global financing crisis is seriously limiting our ability to vaccinate measles to more than 15 million vulnerable children in fragile countries and conflicted by conflicts,” said Catherine Russell, Chief of UNICEF.
“Vaccination services, disease surveillance and outbreak response are already interrupted in almost 50 countries, with setbacks similar to those of the Covid period,” he added.
Although countries are trying to recover accumulated delays during pandemic, the number of children who did not receive their routine vaccines has continued to increase.
In 2023, it is estimated that 14.5 million children will not have received these doses, compared to 13.9 million 2022 and 12.9 million in 2019.
In this context, Gavi, which celebrates its donor conference on June 25, asks for at least 9,000 million dollars “to protect 500 million children and save at least 8 million lives between 2026 and 2030”.
ABD/VLA/AF/AD
