Keeping children safe
with life-saving vaccines
Vaccines are the world’s safest method to protect children from life-threatening diseases.
Deadly diseases like measles, polio, tetanus, tuberculosis, diphtheria and whooping cough are all easily and cheaply preventable by vaccination. Yet every day, 16,000 children under five die, usually because they don’t get the health care and life-saving vaccines they need.
We provide vaccines to immunise almost half of the world’s children against preventable diseases, and with our partners support immunisation programmes in over 100 countries to keep children safe.
We work to strengthen health systems and turn vaccines into vaccinations – training health workers, improving supply chains, providing safe storage like solar-powered cold storage equipment, and disease surveillance to track or predict outbreaks
Since 1980, we have helped quadruple immunisation rates for children worldwide, saving up to 3 million children’s lives a year.
Today more children are protected than ever before, but there is still more work to be done.
Life-saving vaccines for Anirlan
2-year-old Anirlan lives in the far North of Mongolia with her mother, Otgonbayar. The life-saving vaccines Anirlan needs are hundreds of miles away.
UNICEF health worker, Ogi travels hundreds of miles in treacherous conditions to reach Anirlan and give her the vaccinations she needs.
We help reach almost half the world’s children, like Anirlan, with life-saving vaccinations each year.
A donation today can help keep more children like Anirlan safe
Donate nowWE’RE SAVING CHILDREN’S LIVES ALL OVER THE WORLD
We provide more than 2 billion doses of vaccines each year, reaching 45% of the world’s children under five.
In an emergency, we don’t forget vaccines
In the midst of a crisis – whether it’s the ongoing brutality of war or the immediate chaos of natural disaster – we deliver vaccination campaigns to help protect vulnerable children when health services are down.
In 2021, 22.4 million children were vaccinated against measles in humanitarian emergencies across 48 countries
Hanna fled Kyiv with her family, but was able to get her children vaccinated. Many Ukrainians, like Hanna, have found themselves far from home without a family doctor. We are supporting the Ukrainian Government’s immunisation progamme to help protect children from life-threatening diseases.
One-year-old twins Solomiya and Myron are held by their mother, Hanna, before being vaccinated against polio at a medical centre in Ukraine.
And we protect children from malaria
Malaria is one of the greatest dangers for children in sub-Saharan Africa, killing one child every minute. Malaria is spread via mosquitos, so children in malaria countries are in most danger when they’re asleep. Malaria symptoms include fever, headache and vomiting. If not treated, malaria can be deadly.
We secured supplies of the first ever malaria vaccine in 2022. 18 million doses will be made available over the next three years, potentially saving thousands of lives each year.
We are also one of the world’s largest distributors of nets to protect children from mosquito bites. In 2021, the Ministry of Health of Public Hygiene in collaboration with UNICEF and USAID distributed a total of 18.5 million mosquito nets, reaching over 6 million households in Côte d’Ivoire.
Tatiana, 27 years old and his son Israel, 4 years old are happy to receive a mosquito net, in Grand Lahou, in the South of Côte d’Ivoire.
Photo: UNICEF/2021/Diarassouba
