This State of the World’s Children report introduces you to some of the extraordinary women, who despite the challenges they often face, are going above and beyond to make sure children in their communities have access to vaccines. It’s imperative that health workers like these are empowered and supported.
Vaccinate every child through effective immunization programmes and catch-up campaigns
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Catch-up on the vaccination of children missed during the pandemic. 67 million children missed out entirely or partially on routine immunization during the pandemic. These children are moving past the age when they would normally be vaccinated. Urgent action and tailored immunization campaigns are needed to reach them, backed by sufficient financial support for the countries most affected. These catch-up campaigns are necessary in addition to strengthening existing routine immunization programmes that are embedded in primary health care.
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Identify zero-dose and under-vaccinated children and understand their needs. By gathering high-quality immunization data, we can identify and locate zero-dose children and communities that have been missed. A key component of this work is engaging with these communities and their leaders to help identify barriers to children being vaccinated, and to develop approaches that meet the needs of these families.
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Identify children in urban areas and access children in rural areas who aren’t being reached. This will involve strengthening community engagement, recovering human resources lost due to the need to respond to the pandemic, offering flexible vaccine services and empowering local health workers.
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Meet the challenges in emergency and conflict settings. It’s important that we prioritize restoring health workforces and infrastructure in these fragile settings so children on the move have access to vaccines.
The world is facing a red alert for children’s health: Routine vaccination coverage dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. UNICEF’s latest report, The State of the World’s Children 2023: For every child, vaccination, explores the reasons behind this red alert and the steps we as a global community must take to make sure that no child is left behind.Author(s)UNICEFPublication dateApril 2023LanguagesEnglish, French, Arabic, Spanish
