As countries meet this week at the World Health Assembly in Geneva to discuss progress made implementing Immunization Agenda 2030, government leaders, donors, and other global health actors must commit to doing more to ensure adequate and timely vaccination access in conflict zones, said Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today. This includes countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan.

Immunization Agenda 2030 is a World Health Organization (WHO) strategy to vaccinate more people worldwide. However, there are still major gaps in vaccination coverage and efforts in fragile, conflict, and vulnerable settings like many of those in which MSF operates, for reasons including:

• political, administrative, bureaucratic, and logistical barriers blocking the delivery of vaccine supplies like disrupted supply chains;
• security issues restricting access to remote areas where teams would previously carry out vaccination campaigns;
• inadequate funding for supplies and workers; and
• the destruction of health facilities where people could previously get vaccinated.

“In many of the conflict-affected settings where we’re working, routine vaccination has ground to a standstill and timely and effective outbreak response is faltering,” said Dr. Daniela Garone, MSF’s international medical coordinator. “The consequences are dire: Dangerously low vaccination coverage is leaving millions of children vulnerable to recurring, deadly outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.”