Due to the growing number of conflicts around the world, an increasing number of children are not receiving vaccines against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, the United Nations (UN) has announced. About 14.5 million children were not vaccinated in 2023, compared to 13.9 a year earlier, the UN estimates.
That number is still lower than during the COVID-19 pandemic, when around 18 million children did not receive the vaccine. The UN believes an additional 6.5 million children did not receive more than one dose, meaning they are not fully protected.
Estimates were made based on the number of children who received either one or all three doses of the DTP vaccine that protects against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. In total, 84 percent of the world’s children were fully vaccinated last year, which is below the level needed to prevent the spread of the disease.
There is also a positive side of the report
Countries in conflict are particularly affected, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned at a press conference last week ahead of the release of the numbers. The worst is in Sudan, where a civil war has been going on for 15 months. Vaccine coverage there fell to 57 percent last year from 75 percent, which it was in 2022.
This means that almost 701 thousand children in Sudan have not been vaccinated against deadly diseases. The number of unvaccinated children in the occupied Palestinian territories rose to 17,000 in the nine months of last year, according to data based on the period up to September. Three years ago, there were only a thousand of them, the agencies warned.
