Overview
Each year, World Immunization Week is observed in the last week of April with the aim of highlighting the collective action needed and promoting the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. This year, World Immunization Week 2025 will be celebrated from 24 to 30 April with the slogan “Immunization for All is Humanly Possible.
Vaccines are one of humanity’s greatest achievements.
In the last 50 years alone, vaccines have saved almost 154 million lives. That’s six people, every minute, for five decades. Nearly 94 million of the lives saved were a result of measles vaccines.
Decades of collaborative efforts between governments, aid agencies, scientists, healthcare workers, and parents got us to where we are today – a world where we’ve eradicated smallpox and almost eradicated polio; a world where more children than ever before in history live to see their fifth birthday.
Immunization Agenda 2030: A global strategy to leave no one behind
In 2025, we are at a watershed moment in the history of global health. Hard-won gains in immunization are in jeopardy. To protect humanity’s greatest achievement, we must be fierce in our determination to reach all children with essential vaccines, and intensify our efforts to ensure people of all ages are protected from vaccine- preventable disease – grandparents against influenza, pregnant mothers against tetanus, and young girls against HPV.
Campaign Aim
Humanly Possible calls on:
- Parents and communities to vaccinate themselves and their children;
- Governments to invest in strengthening immunization services at local and national levels
to ensure all children are protected; - Health workers to promote the power of immunizations.
Key Messages
Immunization is one of humanity’s greatest achievements.
- In the last 50 years alone, vaccines have saved 154 million people – that’s more than 3 million a year or 6 people every minute. An estimated 94 million of these lives saved were a result of protection by measles vaccines.
- In the same period, vaccination accounts for 40% of the improvement in infant survival, meaning more children now live to see their first birthday.
- Even more people of all ages are being protected against vaccine-preventable diseases every day.
- Immunization reaches more people than any other health service, connecting families with health care systems and helping everyone have access to the care they need.
Vaccines for one person also keep other people safe.
- In today’s interconnected world, an outbreak anywhere is a threat everywhere.
- By supporting vaccinations, we are not just saving lives, but keeping deadly outbreaks from diseases such as measles, diphtheria, cholera, in check all over the world.
- Responding to outbreak after outbreak is an expensive and ineffective way to fight disease, and needlessly puts lives at risk.
- A sustainable way to stop this cycle is through prevention – ensuring people everywhere are protected with the right vaccines, at the right time, from birth into old age.
- It is important to get vaccinated on time, every time. Waiting until there is an outbreak is too late.
- There may not be enough time to receive all the vaccine doses needed to keep you and your family safe from the disease. You or your loved ones may be the ones who are part of the outbreak.
Vaccines ensure less disease and more life.
- Vaccines save lives at all ages – protecting us throughout childhood and adulthood from upwards of 30 infections and deadly diseases.
- Since 1988, 3 billion children have been immunized against polio and 20 million people are walking today who would have otherwise been paralyzed by polio.
- Vaccines create futures. A fully vaccinated child is more likely to become healthy enough to learn, grow and contribute to their community in a way that unhealthy children can’t always do.
- In a time of competing priorities, vaccines are one of the best investment choices governments can make to keep their people healthy and safe. By continuing to invest in vaccines, we can help build a world where fewer children than ever die of preventable diseases.
Not everyone has the same access to life-saving vaccines.
- The world has made incredible gains to improve global immunization access, but progress has stalled in recent years and millions of children are not getting the vaccinations they desperately need.
- In 2023, an estimated 14.5 million children never received a single dose of any vaccine. Despite the measles vaccine saving more lives than any other vaccine in the past five decades, more than 22 million children still missed out on their first dose of this vaccine and another 12 million missed out on their second dose in 2023.
- Every child has the right to be protected from vaccine-preventable diseases – no matter who they are or where they live.
- Increasing access to vaccines everywhere is the best way to give every child a healthy start to life and protect them against preventable diseases from birth into old age.
Immunization for all is Humanly Possible.
- We are at a watershed moment in the history of global health. Hard-won gains in stamping out diseases that are preventable through vaccination are in jeopardy. Decades of collaborative efforts between governments, aid agencies, scientists, healthcare workers, and parents got us to where we are today – a world where we’ve eradicated smallpox and almost eradicated polio.
- In this critical moment, we cannot afford to blink. To protect humanity’s greatest achievement, we must be fierce in our determination to reach all children with essential vaccines, and intensify our efforts to ensure people of all ages are protected from vaccine-preventable disease – grandparents against influenza, pregnant mothers against tetanus, and young girls against HPV.
- New vaccine development and introductions, including the malaria vaccine for children and potential TB vaccines for adolescents and adults, are also essential to advance our fight against some of the world’s most stubborn diseases and help the world prepare for health threats we’ve yet to encounter but know are out there.
- To ensure that the successes of the past 50 years are built on over the next decades, new investments are needed.
- That’s why we’re calling on governments to prioritize investments in immunization, including funding Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and other key programmes, to protect the next generations.
Learn more: WHO website ↗ Gavi’s VaccinesWork platform ↗ UNICEF ↗
Recommended readings
- World Immunization Week 2023: The Big Catch-Up
- World Immunization Week 2021 – Vaccines bring us closer
- World Immunization Week 2020 #VaccinesWork for All
- World Immunization Week- Protected Together: #VaccinesWork!
- World Immunization Week 24-30 April 2018 “Protected Together, #VaccinesWork”
- World Immunization Week 2017 #VaccinesWork
- World Immunization Week 2016: Close the immunization gap
- World Immunization Week 24-30 April 2015: Close the immunization Gap
- ”World Immunization Week, 22–27 April 2013”
- National Immunization Program
- National Immunization Schedule, Nepal (Updated)
- Schedule for Missed Opportunity Vaccination in Nepal
- 27th March 2014 : Historical Day in field of Public Health to end Polio in Nepal
- National Immunization Schedule
- Key Strategies for polio eradication
- Nepal Demographic and Health Survey 2016 Key Indicators Report (Short Notes)
- Nepal Demographic and Health Survey 2016 Key Indicators Report
- World Immunization Week 2017 #VaccinesWork
- Sub-National Immunization Day- 2015
- Nepal Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (NMICS) 2014 Key Findings Report
- World Polio Day 24 October 2017- Promoting health through the life-course
- Information about Vaccine Preventable Diseases(VPDs)
- HPV Vaccination Service Operational Guidelines 2081
- WHO South-East Asia Region lauds countries for routine immunization coverage scale-up, says accelerated efforts must continue
- Focus on unvaccinated children, strengthen routine immunization capacities: WHO
- Vaccine Preventable Diseases Surveillance Plan
- Recommendations of Measles Outbreaks and Root Cause Analysis
- Search more
