SUMMARY
- Over 2 million infants remain completely unvaccinated in Southeast Asia, WHO reports.
- Strain on donor budgets and post-COVID disruptions have triggered fresh disease outbreaks.
- WHO urges national governments to invest more in immunization and counter vaccine hesitancy.
The Immunization Imperative in a Post-COVID World
The Southeast Asia region stands at a perilous juncture as World Immunization Week 2025 arrives. Despite monumental global progress in disease prevention, new WHO data reveals a sobering statistic: more than 2 million infants in the region — including India — remain completely unvaccinated, while 6.5 lakh children do not receive the full course of recommended vaccines. This stark gap is not just a developmental delay. It is a public health emergency in slow motion.
Since 1974, when the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched to combat six childhood diseases, vaccines have saved an estimated 154 million lives worldwide — about six lives every minute. That’s more than the population of Bangladesh. But the progress achieved over five decades is now under siege from post-COVID fallout, renewed vaccine hesitancy, disrupted health financing, and emerging outbreaks of diseases like measles and diphtheria.
According to WHO South-East Asia Regional Director Saima Wazed, Southeast Asia has made immense contributions to the global vaccination ecosystem, accounting for 46% of the world’s vaccine supply. Yet, even as 40 million pregnant women and 37 million newborns receive vaccinations annually, rising outbreaks and funding challenges threaten to reverse this trajectory. “We are at a crossroads,” Wazed warns — and it’s one we cannot afford to choose poorly.
WORLD IMMUNIZATION WEEK ‘25
— PSN-Young Pharmacists Group (@psn_ypg) April 28, 2025
Theme: Immunization for All is Humanly Possible
💉Every vaccine is a promise, but millions still await theirs
✨Consider a mother in a remote village, or a refugee child uncertain about vaccine safety. Their futures depend on access & equity pic.twitter.com/3p8rAuKf2A
Vaccine Access Deteriorates as Global Donor Budgets Shrink
- Global donor budget changes are straining immunisation campaigns across low- and middle-income countries.
- Laboratory surveillance and outbreak response capacities are being quietly eroded.
- WHO highlights funding shortfalls as a top concern during World Immunization Week 2025.
One of the least discussed but most alarming threats to immunisation coverage today is the shifting landscape of donor aid. According to WHO, changes in global health funding have caused major setbacks in disease surveillance systems, laboratory networks, and outbreak response — the very pillars that undergird effective immunisation strategies.
These cuts are not theoretical. In countries across the WHO South-East Asia Region, campaigns that once achieved high coverage are now facing operational gaps. Outreach programmes to catch up on missed COVID-era vaccinations are faltering, even as the aftershocks of the pandemic continue to ripple through communities. And without real-time diagnostics, it’s not just the diseases we know that pose a threat — it’s the ones we don’t see coming.
Measles, Diphtheria, and a Warning Signal from History
- New outbreaks of measles and diphtheria point to post-pandemic immunity gaps.
- Over 154 million lives have been saved through vaccination, with measles vaccines alone accounting for 60% of that figure.
- WHO draws parallels to 1969 when global vaccine momentum collapsed — and took decades to recover.
History offers a grim preview of what may come. In 1969, when the global effort to eradicate malaria and other vaccine-preventable diseases lost steam, the world paid a steep price. It took three decades to recover that momentum — a lag that resulted in millions of preventable deaths. The same spectre looms today.
WHO’s World Immunization Week 2025 is not just a commemorative event. It’s a warning label for the future. Despite the eradication of smallpox, the elimination of polio from Southeast Asia, and progress against maternal and neonatal tetanus, regional vulnerabilities are widening. Today’s measles flare-ups aren’t isolated failures — they’re system-wide tremors.
As Wazed notes, “More children now live to see their first birthday than at any other time in human history,” largely due to immunisation. But progress is no longer linear. Without urgent government investment, increased community awareness, and stronger global partnerships, the region risks sliding backwards into a state where hard-won victories are lost in the span of a few years.
The Fight Ahead: Immunisation for All Is Humanly Possible
- WHO calls on national governments to scale up EPI (Expanded Programme on Immunisation) funding for long-term sustainability.
- Vaccine hesitancy, systemic underfunding, and weak health infrastructure must be tackled head-on.
- World Immunization Week 2025’s theme underlines the urgency: “Immunisation for all is humanly possible.”
The theme for World Immunization Week 2025 — Immunisation for all is humanly possible — is both an affirmation and a challenge. The numbers are clear. The science is unambiguous. Yet the politics, funding gaps, and psychological fatigue of a post-pandemic world threaten to derail decades of medical progress.
To succeed, the path forward must include massive reinvestment in public health systems, particularly in low-income and emerging economies. The EPI — once hailed as the most impactful global health programme in modern history — now needs reinforcement. Governments must step in where donor funding has pulled back. Misinformation must be countered with evidence. And children, especially in rural and under-resourced settings, must be brought back into the vaccination net.
“The only way forward is together,” Wazed emphasises. “Governments, health organisations, communities, and individuals — to protect all the progress we’ve made.”
This is not merely about public health infrastructure. It’s about a collective belief in the idea that no child, anywhere, should suffer from a disease we already know how to prevent. It’s about safeguarding humanity’s greatest achievement — vaccines — for its greatest asset: its children.
