Vaccination coverage is slipping in a number of middle- and high-income countries, including Bulgaria, as political priorities shift, health systems face ongoing challenges, and vaccine hesitancy continues to grow, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF's annual report on national immunization coverage for 2025.
The report, which analyzes data from 195 countries, notes that governments and healthcare providers have managed to recover much of the vaccination ground lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite that progress, millions of children worldwide remain unprotected because of armed conflicts, forced displacement, poverty, and unequal access to healthcare.
WHO officials stressed that the necessary tools to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases already exist but require stronger commitment to ensure they reach everyone. “The means to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases are already there,” said Dr. Kate O'Brien, Director of WHO's Department of Immunization and Vaccines. “Now there needs to be greater and better commitment, concerted action and determination from every parent, health worker and leader to ensure that no child, young person, mother or adult is left to suffer or die from a vaccine-preventable disease.”
