<\/p>\n
FILE – A health worker shows a bottle of the malaria vaccine R21\/Matrix-M before administering it to a child at the comprehensive Health Centre in Agudama-Epie, in Yenagoa, Nigeria, on Dec. 9, 2024.<\/p>\n
Sunday Alamba\/AP<\/p>\n
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) \u2014 Vaccination programs across Africa have saved tens of millions of lives over the past two decades, but progress is slowing in some countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, amid warnings that cuts to United States aid risk leaving millions of children unprotected.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Health systems in the continent of 1.5 billion people face growing uncertainty following the U.S. pullback from global health funding under President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d policy, alongside disruptions linked to the war in the Middle East that are straining aid budgets and supply chains.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Announcing its first-ever comprehensive analysis of immunization in the region, the WHO said more than 500 million children have been reached through routine vaccination since 2000, preventing over 4 million deaths each year.<\/p>\n
Overall, it said vaccines have saved more than 50 million lives in Africa over the past five decades, \u201cgaining an estimated 60 years of life expectancy for each infant life saved\u201d during that period.<\/p>\n
In 2024 alone, vaccines saved nearly 2 million lives, the agency said, pointing to key milestones including the eradication of wild poliovirus in 2020, \u201ca historic milestone for Africa,\u201d and the elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus in most countries.<\/p>\n
Vaccines against malaria, a disease that kills more than 400,000 people annually, most of them children under five in Africa, are now being introduced in 25 countries. Mohamed Janabi, the WHO regional director for Africa, called that \u201ca major scientific and public health breakthrough\u201d during an online press briefing.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
But he also warned that \u201cprogress is uneven and in some places really slowing,\u201d after the COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of children who have never received a single vaccine.<\/p>\n
Ten countries account for 80% of children who haven\u2019t received any vaccine in the region, he said, describing it as \u201ca profound equity issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese immunization outcomes reflect very different realities, and we have more work to do to ensure we are consistently able to reach children, even in the most fragile and remote contexts,\u201d said Sania Nishtar, chief executive of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which partners with WHO in vaccination efforts.<\/p>\n
Aid cuts since Trump returned to the White House in 2025 have been devastating, Janabi said. The U.S. withdrawal from WHO in January resulted in the loss of about 40% of the agency\u2019s overseas development funding, he said, and urged African governments to increase domestic health financing to mitigate the impact.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
The U.S-Iran war, which has disrupted supply chains and increased gas prices, is concerning for a continent where \u201cmany of our facilities depend on generators,\u201d said Adelheid Onyango, the WHO Africa director for health systems and services. She said the agency is yet to quantify the war’s impact.<\/p>\n
Health experts such as Shabir Madhi, a professor of vaccinology and dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at South Africa\u2019s University of the Witwatersrand, say funding is emerging as the \u201cbiggest threat\u201d to Africa’s immunization efforts as the U.S. and other Western donors tighten aid to poorer countries.<\/p>\n
In many countries, aid-funded programs have already scaled back or shut down, reducing access to basic health services, including clinics, health workers, cold-chain infrastructure and outreach services that vaccination campaigns rely on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can\u2019t be that we continue relying on the likes of Gavi Vaccine Alliance, which has done a tremendous amount of work in terms of ensuring that there\u2019s increasing uptake of new vaccines,\u201d said Madhi. \u201cThe Gavi Vaccine Alliance itself is already experiencing a financial crunch. What we need to start putting on the table is what percentage of the immunization program should be funded by countries … to ensure that not just a few children are getting vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
For more on Africa and development: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/africa-pulse<\/a>\n<\/p>\n The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – A health worker shows a bottle of the malaria vaccine R21\/Matrix-M before administering it to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[198145,190,198144,65,134,16609,198146,111,139,69,186037,186038,186035,198147,189610],"class_list":{"0":"post-381019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-adelheid-onyango","9":"tag-africa","10":"tag-africa-immunization-vaccination-aid-cuts-iran-war","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-mohamed-janabi","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-newzealand","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","19":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","20":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","21":"tag-product-32503-ap-online-africa-news","22":"tag-product-32538-ap-online-health-and-medical-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}