When thinking about vaccination and your child, it’s worth looking beyond the UK and considering the vaccine situation around the rest of the world.
In the UK, routine childhood vaccinations are free and easily available to all children, no matter what their circumstances. Vaccination has been so successful that we now rarely see potentially deadly infections such as diphtheria, polio and preventable types of meningitis.
But children in developing countries who don't get vaccinated are still at risk of deadly infections. We know that successful vaccination programmes save thousands of lives, which is why organisations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) are committed to making vaccines against measles, polio and other serious diseases available to as many children as possible around the world.
Vaccination facts from around the world
- Three million children die every year from diseases that are entirely preventable.
- 30 million babies aren't able to get basic vaccinations each year.
- In almost 50 countries, nearly two-thirds (60%) of children are not vaccinated.
- A child in the developing world is 10 times more likely to die of a vaccine-preventable death than a child in an industrialised nation.
Protecting children
The GAVI Alliance (formerly The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) was formed in 1999 to ensure that every child in the world is protected against vaccine-preventable diseases. It also funds research into other child-killing diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
GAVI members include governments, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, the WHO, the vaccine industry represented by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA), The Rockefeller Foundation, The World Bank Group, and research and public health institutions.
The good news about vaccination
Already the GAVI Alliance is paying off. Thirty years ago, one in four children died before the age of five. Today, that number is one in 10. Close to 75% of the world’s children are now vaccinated against the six main killer diseases (measles, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tuberculosis and tetanus). The number of deaths from these diseases has been more than halved since 1980.
Now, read more about how vaccination has saved the lives of countless youngsters in the UK.
