Kate O’Brien, Director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO
At the mid-way point of Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), countries gathering at the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly (WHA79) marked an important moment in reaffirming their commitment to reaching everyone, everywhere with life-saving vaccines.
Member States and global health partners strongly reasserted their support for the strategy, goals, and programmatic implementation of IA2030, recognizing immunization as one of the most powerful, cost-effective and equitable health interventions available. They also recognized that strong immunization programmes are a centre piece for emergency preparedness and response. This renewed commitment sends a clear message: vaccines are not only essential for disease prevention, but are also foundational to resilient health systems, global health security and equity.
Yet progress remains fragile. In too many countries, routine immunization coverage is slipping. Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are occurring in a wider range of countries, inequities are increasing even further affecting zero-dose children, and growing challenges linked to misinformation, conflict, climate pressures and constrained financing. These are not abstract risks — they are realities affecting more and more communities around the world. Discussions at WHA79 underscored that no country can afford complacency.
Initiatives such as The Big Catch-Up show what can be achieved through strong political commitment, financing and partnership. Countries have not only reached children who missed vaccinations during the COVID-19 but pandemic have also strengthened primary health care systems to help ensure no child is left behind in the future. However, recovery alone is not enough. We must go further to reach chronically missed populations, debunk misinformation that is striking communities, build up trust, and strengthen routine immunization programmes so they can withstand future shocks, which are inevitable.
This also means strengthening preparedness for health emergencies by ensuring rapid vaccine mobilization, reinforcing contingency planning, and tightening up the integration of immunization, surveillance and emergency response systems. The ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases will be increasingly critical in a complex and evolving local and global environment.
This past month also brought encouraging new evidence of the impact vaccines can achieve.
Newly published evidence on the public health use of the RTS,S malaria vaccine in the first African countries to offer the vaccine confirms that the malaria vaccine saves child lives and will have significant impact in wider rollout. Over four years, an estimated one in eight child deaths child deaths were averted among those eligible to receive the malaria vaccine in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.
Today, with 25 countries in Africa offering malaria vaccines, the impact of vaccines will grow—to prevent malaria, drive down child mortality, and create additional health care touchpoints to deliver other essential health services. This is what integrated, life-course immunization looks like in practice.
At the same time, progress in other areas reminds us of the work still to be done.
The fourth meeting of the Tuberculosis Vaccine Accelerator Council , held on the sidelines of WHA79, brought together global, regional and country-level health leaders, funders, technical agencies and civil society to highlight progress in efforts to accelerate the availability of and access to novel TB vaccines for adults and adolescents. Even while the clinical trials of new TB vaccines are yet to read-out, the at-risk planning for success is intensifying. Key focus areas discussed included elevating domestic financing as a national priority, strategies for catalyzing finance and access mechanisms to ensure equitable access, the importance of integrating new TB vaccines with existing TB control interventions and lifecourse immunization programmes to optimize impact, and country preparedness for rollout and community acceptance. TB remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, and new TB vaccines are a global priority to change the trajectory of the epidemic. Efficacy data for new TB vaccines remain on track to be available by 2028.
Across all these efforts—whether recovering routine immunization programmes, introducing new vaccines, or accelerating innovation—the message is consistent: equity remains at the very heart of this work. Reaching children with vaccines in a timely way, to avoid them becoming zero-dose children, means systematically innovating in every community how to reach underserved populations. This work is not only one of the most impactful returns on investment, it is essential to achieving global health security and sustainable development. Most important, it is the moral and human thing to do.
Looking ahead, our task is clear.
We must move from words and commitments into local action.
We must protect the gains that have made. Backsliding is not an option.
And we must accelerate progress where it matters most.
This will require sustained domestic investment, strong and committed country leadership and focused, effective partnerships. It will also require something less tangible, but equally essential: trust — in vaccines, in health systems and in one another.
The path to 2030 goals is narrowing, but the goals remain in reach for many communities and countries. Country ownership, regional commitment and global support are needed more than ever, deliver on the promise of Immunization Agenda 2030 and ensure that everyone, everywhere, at every age fully benefits from vaccines.
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