Islamabad, June 25, 2025: Life-saving childhood vaccination coverage has stagnated globally in recent decades. It leaves millions of children vulnerable to deadly diseases. A new study by the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet reveals that Pakistan now has the second-highest number of “zero-dose” children in South Asia. This Pakistan Zero-Dose Children discoverability places it only after India, with 419,000 children missing essential vaccinations.
The Lancet study is part of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023. They highlight that despite significant progress over the past 50 years, the last two decades have seen stalled vaccination rates and wide variations in coverage.
This critical challenge has been further worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. It leads to an estimated 12.8 million additional unvaccinated children globally between 2020 and 2023 due to service disruptions.
The authors warn that without “transformational improvements in equity” and concerted efforts against misinformation, global immunization targets for 2030 will not be met.
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Globally, over half of the world’s 15.7 million unvaccinated children in 2023 resided in just eight countries, with South Asia accounting for 13%.
Pakistan’s high number of zero-dose children is particularly concerning. It is contributing to ongoing public health issues like wild-type polio cases, which persist in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Despite initiatives like the Pakistan Polio Programme and support from UNICEF, challenges such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation continue to impede progress in eradicating vaccine-preventable diseases.
