A recent study led by Dr. Emily Haeuser from the University of Washington reveals a concerning decline in global vaccine coverage, threatening the health of millions of children. This is the monumental story told in the research published in The Lancet, showing how vaccination efforts saved 154 million lives in the last fifty years. Over the past several years, this progress has completely stalled, particularly in high-income countries.
This study finds a troubling decline in vaccine coverage for at least one dose for many of the most consequential diseases. This drop has 21 of 36 high income countries, and impacts diseases including diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, measles, polio, and tuberculosis. This trend marks a significant decrease in France, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the USA.
Besides these measles-complacent high-income countries, measles vaccination rates have plummeted to worrying levels in a further 100 out of 204 countries globally. In Argentina, for example, first-dose measles vaccinations decreased by 12%. At the same time, Finland and Austria experienced 3% and 8% drops in the third-dose diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccination, respectively.
Dr. Haeuser underscored the need to know what the public thinks about vaccines.
“Successful vaccination programmes are built on understanding and responding to people’s beliefs, concerns and expectations,” – Dr Emily Haeuser
Vaccination rates are dropping, which is alarming for the reintroduction of serious diseases to children and from the larger public health perspective. Dr. Jonathan Mosser noted that despite significant global efforts over the past 50 years, the progress has been inconsistent.
“Despite the monumental efforts of the past 50 years, progress has been far from universal,” – Dr Jonathan Mosser
From our analysis we were able to pinpoint six specific things that are driving this troubling trend. Persistent global inequalities in healthcare access combined with the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption of health services have weakened immunization efforts. The emergence of vaccine misinformation and hesitancy has created a public health storm.
By 1980, about 58.8 million children in the world had not been vaccinated at all. Over the next six years, that number plummeted to only 14.7 million by 2019. Although this is an improvement, the deadly current declines in vaccination rates would jeopardize these hard-won gains.
Helen Bedford, a professor of children’s health at University College London, pointed to the numerous factors behind the decrease in vaccine uptake. As she explained, the reasons are “many, and complicated.” This complexity highlights the importance of providing targeted interventions that empathize with and respond to these public concerns to help rebuild trust in vaccination programs.