According to the official website of the World Health Organization (WHO) on April 24, during the "World Immunization Week" held from the 24th to the 30th, WHO, UNICEF and the Global Vaccine Immunity Alliance jointly issued a warning that due to the spread of misinformation and the reduction of international aid, diseases that could have been prevented by vaccines, such as measles, meningitis and yellow fever, are on the rise worldwide.

The three major international organizations urgently called on countries to continue to invest political attention and funds to consolidate the results of immunization programs and safeguard the significant progress made in reducing child mortality in the world over the past half century.

The latest monitoring data show that measles cases have increased year by year since 2021. In 2023, there were 10.3 million cases, an increase of 20% from 2022. In the past 12 months, 138 countries have reported measles cases, of which 61 countries have experienced large-scale or devastating outbreaks. The number of cases of meningitis in Africa is also increasing significantly, and the upward trend may continue this year. In the first quarter of this year alone, 22 countries reported more than 5,500 suspected cases and 22 deaths. Yellow fever cases in Africa are also rising. Although the vaccination program has sharply reduced the number of cases in the past 10 years, 12 countries reported 124 confirmed cases in 2024. Since the beginning of this year, 4 countries have reported 131 cases.

UNICEF President Catherine Russell said that funding shortages are swallowing up the world's hard-won epidemic prevention results. The current global financial crisis makes it difficult for them to vaccinate more than 15 million children in conflict areas against measles.

Even more worrying is that the number of children who miss routine immunizations continues to grow. In 2023, about 14.5 million children did not receive any basic vaccines, an increase of 600,000 from 2022.

The Global Vaccine Alliance will hold a fundraising summit on June 25, with the goal of raising US$9 billion to build an immune barrier for 500 million children between 2026 and 2030.

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