The United Nations on Friday said a three-year effort to immunise children who missed routine vaccinations due to the Covid-19 crisis was on course to reach the 21 million target.
The pandemic, which swept around the world in 2020, severely strained health systems and disrupted vaccination campaigns, resulting in a resurgence of infectious diseases such as measles and polio.
The UN’s World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency UNICEF, plus Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance said in a joint statement that the so-called Big Catch-Up campaign “is on track to meet its target of catching up 21 million children”.
The vaccine drive concluded in March.
While final data is still being compiled, by the end of December 2025, the campaign had reached an estimated 18.3 million children aged one to five across 36 countries in Africa and Asia with more than 100 million doses of life-saving vaccines.
Of those children reached, an estimated 12.3 million had never received a vaccine dose before, while 15 million had never previously received a measles vaccine.
Besides reaching those children, the agencies said the drive had also improved immunisation programmes, making them better equipped to identify older children who were not on the system, having missed earlier doses.
“By protecting children who missed out on vaccinations because of disruptions to health services caused by Covid-19, the Big Catch-Up has helped to undo one of the pandemic’s major negative consequences,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
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