Nine in ten infants now receive at least one routine vaccine, but 13.5 million still get none, measles is spreading again, and the global goal of halving the number of unvaccinated children by 2030 is seriously off track.
Updated October 14, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Out of every 100 infants born worldwide, how many did not receive even a first dose of the basic diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine in 2025?
13.5 million
Zero-dose children
Infants without a single DTP dose. About 745,000 fewer than in 2024, but 0.7 million more than the 2019 baseline of 12.8 million.
Data year 2025. Source: WHO and UNICEF, 2026
85%
Infants fully vaccinated against DTP
About 110 million infants received all three doses; 90% received at least the first dose. Both are one point above 2024 and one point below 2019.
Data year 2025. Source: UNICEF and WHO, 2026
11 million
Estimated measles infections
Nearly 800,000 more than in 2019. An estimated 95,000 people died, mostly children under five. Modelled WHO estimates.
Data year 2024. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
World averages of WHO/UNICEF estimates as published in World Bank Open Data; selected reported years only. 2025 values were not yet in this dataset in October 2026; WHO and UNICEF put global DTP3 coverage at 85% for 2025. The dip in 2021 reflects disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Immunization Agenda 2030 aims to halve the number of zero-dose children from 12.8 million in 2019 to 6.4 million by 2030, with a midpoint milestone of 9.6 million for 2025. The actual 2025 figure of 13.5 million is 3.9 million above that milestone and higher than the 2019 baseline, and WHO and UNICEF describe the world as seriously off track.
Fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings are home to about a third of the world's newborns but 54% of zero-dose children. Only 75% of infants there completed three DTP doses, compared with 90% elsewhere.
Source: WHO and UNICEF, 2026About 70% of zero-dose children, 9.5 million in 2025, live in the lower-income countries eligible for Gavi support. That is 640,000 fewer than in 2024 but still slightly above the 9.1 million of 2019.
Source: Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, 2026Nigeria has the largest number of zero-dose children of any country, and Yemen the lowest coverage with a first DTP dose.
Source: WHO and UNICEF, 2026Compared with 2019, estimated measles cases in 2024 were 86% higher in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 47% higher in Europe and 42% higher in South-East Asia, while the African Region saw a 40% fall.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
Loading country values…
Values in % of children aged 12–23 months.
Shown as 100 minus WHO/UNICEF estimated coverage with three doses of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine, the standard measure of how well routine immunization works. Latest year available per country: almost all values are for 2024 (Nicaragua 2023), because the 2025 estimates released in July 2026 had not yet reached World Bank Open Data. Estimates combine administrative reports and surveys, are rounded to whole percent and can be uncertain where population counts are out of date.
Source: WHO and UNICEF estimates of national immunization coverage, via World Bank Open Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from World Bank Open Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
ModerateEstimated measles deaths fell by 88% between 2000 and 2024, yet measles infections in 2024 were nearly 800,000 higher than in 2019, and the number of zero-dose children is still above its 2019 baseline.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
HighThe routine childhood vaccines are long established, safe and highly effective; measles vaccination alone is credited with nearly 59 million lives saved since 2000. The main problems lie in delivery, trust and financing rather than in the vaccines themselves.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
ModerateMost infants receive their first routine vaccines, but protection thins out along the schedule: 77% received a second measles dose in 2025, and average coverage across the full course of WHO-recommended vaccines is 74%.
WHO and UNICEF publish detailed estimates for 195 countries every year, but only 18 national immunization surveys were submitted for the 2025 round, compared with 50 in 2024, and the agencies warn that the data systems needed to track the effect of funding cuts are under strain.
Global coverage edged up by one point in 2025 but remains below 2019, 65 countries that were below 90% DTP3 coverage in 2019 are stagnating or falling behind, and the effects of recent cuts to international health funding are not yet visible in the data.
Vaccines are among the most effective health tools available: measles vaccination alone is estimated to have saved nearly 59 million lives since 2000. Yet in 2025, WHO and UNICEF estimate that 13.5 million infants did not receive a single dose of the basic diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine. These zero-dose children usually miss every other routine vaccine too. Millions more start their vaccinations but do not finish them: about 7.3 million infants received a first DTP dose but dropped out before their first measles dose. Global coverage has inched up since the pandemic but is still slightly below 2019 levels.
Gaps in protection let diseases return. Measles is so contagious that about 95% of children need two doses to stop outbreaks, but only 84% received a first dose and 77% a second in 2025. An estimated 11 million people were infected with measles in 2024, more than before the pandemic, and about 95,000 died, mostly children under five. Unvaccinated children are concentrated in conflict-affected and fragile settings and in poorer communities, while in some middle- and high-income countries coverage is slipping amid weaker political commitment, structural problems or rising hesitancy, even where vaccines are easy to get. Cuts to international health funding since 2025 are not yet reflected in the latest estimates.
Each year WHO and UNICEF estimate national vaccination coverage for infants, combining routine reports from health facilities with household surveys. The Immunization Agenda 2030 and SDG target 3.b track progress with a few core measures:
Zero-dose children
Infants who have not received a first dose of a DTP-containing vaccine by their first birthday. Because DTP is the first routine vaccine in almost every country, missing it is used as a marker for children whom the health system does not reach at all.
Under-vaccinated children (drop-out)
Children who start the schedule but do not complete it, for example those who receive a first DTP dose but not the third, or who never receive a measles vaccine. DTP3 coverage is the standard yardstick for how well a routine programme works.
Measles coverage (MCV1 and MCV2)
The share of children who receive the first and second dose of a measles-containing vaccine. Coverage of about 95% with two doses is needed to prevent outbreaks, which makes measles an early warning signal for gaps in the wider system.
Breadth of protection
Whether children and adolescents also receive newer vaccines, such as those against pneumococcus, rotavirus and the human papillomavirus (HPV), which national schedules have added over the past two decades.
What works
Regular vaccination sessions at clinics and through outreach deliver a fixed schedule of vaccines in the first years of life. In 2025 about 110 million infants completed three DTP doses through these services, and 100 of 195 countries have maintained coverage of at least 90%.
Limits
Services miss children who live far from clinics, in conflict zones or in informal settlements, and many children drop out between doses: an estimated 7.3 million started DTP but missed their first measles dose.
What works
Campaigns to reach children who missed doses during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the Big Catch-up in 36 countries, reported about 14.3 million first DTP doses and 17.2 million first measles doses given to children who had missed them.
Limits
Catch-up rounds are temporary and costly. They close past gaps but do not fix the weaknesses in routine services that created them.
What works
Giving two doses of measles vaccine, backed by surveillance and rapid response campaigns, cut estimated measles deaths by 88% between 2000 and 2024. By the end of 2024, 81 countries had eliminated measles.
Limits
Protection holds only when about 95% of children receive both doses. With second-dose coverage at 76% in 2024, large outbreaks hit 59 countries that year.
What works
Through Gavi, donors and lower-income countries jointly finance and buy vaccines at lower prices, with countries paying a rising share themselves.
Limits
The model depends on donor pledges. For 2026–2030 Gavi faced an estimated shortfall of US$3 billion against its US$11.9 billion target and decided to slow down some programmes.
What works
A global network of more than 760 laboratories confirms measles and rubella cases, so that health authorities can see where immunity gaps are causing outbreaks and respond quickly.
Limits
Surveillance detects gaps but cannot close them, and WHO warns that deep funding cuts to the laboratory network and to national programmes could widen immunity gaps.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
Small patches with dissolving microneedles that deliver measles-rubella vaccine through the skin could be given without syringes and with fewer cold-chain demands, which would help in remote areas. They are still being tested in clinical trials, and large-scale manufacturing and approval are open questions.
Combining surveys, health records, population maps and satellite data to estimate where unvaccinated children live, down to districts or settlements, so that outreach can be targeted. Several countries use such maps for planning, but estimates are only as good as the population and coverage data behind them.
Electronic records for each child, sometimes linked to text-message reminders, aim to show who is due or overdue for a dose. Results vary between settings, and registries depend on reliable connectivity, trained staff and protection of personal data.
Implementation gap
Gavi entered its 2026–2030 period with an estimated US$3 billion shortfall against its US$11.9 billion target and agreed to slow some programmes, while countries are asked to take on more of the cost themselves.
Coordination gap
More than half of all zero-dose children live in fragile, conflict-affected or vulnerable settings, where insecurity, displacement and damaged health facilities make regular vaccination sessions hard to sustain.
Implementation gap
Among children not fully protected with DTP, 31% had started the series but did not finish it. Missed appointments, long distances, costs of travel and lost income all make it hard for families to return for later doses.
Knowledge gap
WHO and UNICEF point to rising hesitancy, alongside weaker political commitment, as one reason coverage is slipping in some middle- and high-income countries, and call on governments to counter false health information. Which approaches rebuild trust at scale is not well established.
Knowledge gap
Only 18 national immunization surveys were submitted for the 2025 estimates, down from 50 in 2024 and an average of 33 a year in 2015–2019. Without surveys, coverage estimates rely more on administrative data, which can be inaccurate when population counts are out of date.
Technology gap
Most vaccines must be kept refrigerated from factory to child and given by trained staff with needles, which limits how far into remote or insecure areas services can reach. Heat-stable, needle-free products are not yet available for routine use.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
Which combinations of outreach, community health workers, mapping and incentives reach zero-dose children in conflict zones, remote areas and urban informal settlements at a cost health systems can sustain?
Why has hesitancy grown in some countries but not others, and which interventions against misinformation actually change vaccination behaviour rather than only attitudes?
How much will the reductions in international health financing since 2025 lower coverage and weaken surveillance, and where will outbreaks follow? The latest estimates do not yet capture these effects.
Can microarray patches and other new delivery forms match the protection of injected vaccines, be produced affordably at scale, and actually raise coverage among children who are currently missed?
Check your and your children's vaccination records, including measles, and ask a doctor about any missed doses, especially before travelling. High coverage in every community helps protect people who cannot be vaccinated.
When vaccines come up in conversation or online, point people to health authorities and their own doctor rather than amplifying unverified claims. Listening to concerns tends to work better than arguing.
Organisations that deliver vaccines in low-income and crisis settings depend on donations. Look for groups that publish independent evaluations and coverage results before you give.
Much of the vaccination of children in lower-income countries is co-financed by international aid. Telling elected representatives that you support this funding is one of the few ways individuals can influence it.
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UNICEF and WHO (joint press release, July 2026), published 2026
Launch of the WHO/UNICEF estimates of national immunization coverage (WUENIC) for 2025. Source of DTP1 (90%), DTP3 (85%, 110 million), MCV1 (84%) and MCV2 (77%) coverage, 13.5 million zero-dose children, 7.3 million drop-outs before measles vaccination, 57 countries with large measles outbreaks in 2025, 74% average coverage across the full WHO-recommended course, 100 of 195 countries at 90% or more, 65 stagnating countries, the drop to 18 national surveys and the note that funding cuts are not yet reflected.
WHO and UNICEF (July 2026), published 2026
Slide set accompanying the 2025 estimates. Source of zero-dose numbers (12.8 million in 2019, 13.5 million in 2025), the IA2030 milestone (9.6 million) and target (6.4 million), the split of zero-dose and drop-out children, figures for fragile and conflict-affected settings, country rankings, Big Catch-up doses and HPV first-dose coverage (33% of 66.1 million eligible girls).
World Health Organization (news release, 28 November 2025), published 2025
Summary of the WHO/US CDC global measles estimates for 2024. Source of 11 million infections, 95,000 deaths, the 88% fall in deaths since 2000, nearly 59 million lives saved, regional changes in cases, 59 countries with large outbreaks, 81 countries having eliminated measles, the laboratory network and concerns about funding cuts.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (VaccinesWork, 15 July 2026), published 2026
Gavi's analysis of the 2025 WHO/UNICEF estimates. Source of zero-dose figures for Gavi-supported countries (9.5 million in 2025, 9.1 million in 2019, about 70% of the global total), and the 640,000 fall since 2024.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (news release, 25 July 2025), published 2025
Board decision on the 2026–2030 strategy after the replenishment fell short. Source of the US$11.9 billion target, the estimated US$3 billion shortfall, the slowdown of some programmes and greater country co-financing.
World Bank Open Data, based on WHO and UNICEF estimates (accessed 14 October 2026), published 2026
World aggregate of WHO/UNICEF DTP3 coverage, used for the trend chart (2000, 2010, 2019, 2021 and 2024). The 2025 value was not yet included.