Fact sheet
Updated July 2016
Key facts
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Immunization prevents illness, disability and death from vaccine-preventable diseases including cervical cancer, diphtheria, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), pneumonia, polio, rotavirus diarrhoea, rubella and tetanus.
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Global vaccination coverage is generally holding steady.
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Uptake of new and underused vaccines is increasing.
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Immunization currently averts an estimated 2 to 3 million deaths every year. An additional 1.5 million deaths could be avoided, however, if global vaccination coverage improves.
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An estimated 19.4 million infants worldwide are still missing out on basic vaccines.
Geneva, 15 July 2016
The latest WHO and UNICEF data on global immunization coverage show that 86% of the world’s children received the required 3 doses of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis containing vaccines (DTP3) in 2015, a coverage level that has been sustained above 85% since 2010.
As a result, the number of children who did not receive routine vaccinations has dropped to an estimated 19.4 million, down from 33.8 million in 2000.1
However, this progress falls short of global immunization targets of the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) for the Decade of Vaccines of achieving 90% or more DTP3 vaccination coverage at the national level and 80% or more in all districts2 in all countries by 2015.
TrustLaw Litigation for Trafficking
At Trust Women, the Thomson Reuters Foundation and HT Pro Bono announced a partnership to create the TrustLaw Litigation Hub for Trafficking and Modern Slavery. The Hub will use civil litigation strategies to secure compensation and access to justice for survivors, hold perpetrators to account, provide meaningful deterrence to traffickers, and strengthen relevant laws. The Hub will include/facilitate:
* An online platform, bringing together a global network of anti-trafficking lawyers, specialist NGOs, and pro bono lawyers. The Hub will provide them with the tools they need to connect, make referrals and share expertise
* Awareness raising and training of local anti-trafficking NGOs and lawyers in target countries to help build a pipeline of cases and facilitate connection with lawyers who can provide rapid support.
Awareness raising and training will begin in Thailand and the wider Southeast Asia region, with the aim of expanding to India in the second year of the project. As the Thomson Reuters Foundation and its partners refine the capacities and functionalities of the Hub, suggestions are welcome.
The Nordic countries are facing a number of the same challenges, concerning gender, education and population flows in the peripheral areas.
There is a connection between a local area’s size and its gender composition: a small community will often have a deficit of women compared to the number of men.
Even though both men and women are moving towards the larger cities, the trend is more significant among women.
The development tendencies in the Nordic peripheries contain a strong gender dimension, which is often overlooked.
Source: Faber, Pristed Nielsen & Bennike 2015.
