Geneva – New York: Europe and the Arabs

The massive global immunization campaign known as the “Catch-Up Campaign” has successfully reached approximately 18.3 million children aged 1 to 5 years in 36 countries, providing 100 million doses of life-saving vaccines.

This was announced by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), the World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF, coinciding with the start of World Immunisation Week, held from April 24 to 30, according to the UN Daily News. According to the WHO, this initiative is a historic, multi-year, and comprehensive effort across multiple countries, aimed at addressing the decline in immunization rates primarily caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of the children reached between 2023 and 2025, an estimated 12.3 million were children who had never received any vaccines, while 15 million had never received the measles vaccine. The initiative provided 23 million doses of polio vaccine to unvaccinated or incompletely immunized children—a crucial and essential intervention to achieve the goal of polio eradication. The program concluded on March 31, 2026. The agencies involved in the campaign emphasized that while catch-up vaccination is important to close immunization gaps, expanding routine immunization programs remains the most effective and sustainable way to protect children and prevent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Investing in Strong Immunization Systems
Dr. Sanya Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, stressed that thanks to the campaign's achievement, "not only have millions of children been protected from preventable diseases, but their communities have also been protected for generations to come." The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, affirmed that "the success of the large-scale catch-up initiative is a testament to the dedication of health workers and national immunization programs, which are now better equipped to identify and vaccinate children who missed routine immunization services."

The Executive Director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, stated that "the gains achieved through this campaign must be sustained by investing in strong and reliable immunization systems, especially given the current resurgence of measles."

The three entities cautioned that reducing the annual number of children missing out on vaccinations will require building systems capable of consistently reaching hard-to-reach communities, in a context marked by rising birth rates, conflict and displacement, funding cuts, and strained health systems.