WHO says vaccinations save millions in Africa, but US aid cuts and Iran
war threaten progress
[April 16, 2026]
By FARAI MUTSAKA
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Vaccination programs across Africa have saved
tens of millions of lives over the past two decades, but progress is
slowing in some countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday,
amid warnings that cuts to United States aid risk leaving millions of
children unprotected.
Health systems in the continent of 1.5 billion people face growing
uncertainty following the U.S. pullback from global health funding under
President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy, alongside disruptions
linked to the war in the Middle East that are straining aid budgets and
supply chains.
Announcing its first-ever comprehensive analysis of immunization in the
region, the WHO said more than 500 million children have been reached
through routine vaccination since 2000, preventing over 4 million deaths
each year.
Overall, it said vaccines have saved more than 50 million lives in
Africa over the past five decades, “gaining an estimated 60 years of
life expectancy for each infant life saved” during that period.
In 2024 alone, vaccines saved nearly 2 million lives, the agency said,
pointing to key milestones including the eradication of wild poliovirus
in 2020, “a historic milestone for Africa,” and the elimination of
maternal and neonatal tetanus in most countries.
Vaccines against malaria, a disease that kills more than 400,000 people
annually, most of them children under five in Africa, are now being
introduced in 25 countries. Mohamed Janabi, the WHO regional director
for Africa, called that “a major scientific and public health
breakthrough” during an online press briefing.
But he also warned that “progress is uneven and in some places really
slowing,” after the COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of children
who have never received a single vaccine.
Ten countries account for 80% of children who haven’t received any
vaccine in the region, he said, describing it as “a profound equity
issue.”
“These immunization outcomes reflect very different realities, and we
have more work to do to ensure we are consistently able to reach
children, even in the most fragile and remote contexts,” said Sania
Nishtar, chief executive of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which partners
with WHO in vaccination efforts.
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A health worker shows a bottle of the malaria vaccine R21/Matrix-M
before administering it to a child at the comprehensive Health
Centre in Agudama-Epie, in Yenagoa, Nigeria, on Dec. 9, 2024. (AP
Photo/Sunday Alamba, File)
 Aid cuts since Trump returned to the
White House in 2025 have been devastating, Janabi said. The U.S.
withdrawal from WHO in January resulted in the loss of about 40% of
the agency’s overseas development funding, he said, and urged
African governments to increase domestic health financing to
mitigate the impact.
The U.S-Iran war, which has disrupted supply chains and increased
gas prices, is concerning for a continent where “many of our
facilities depend on generators,” said Adelheid Onyango, the WHO
Africa director for health systems and services. She said the agency
is yet to quantify the war's impact.
Health experts such as Shabir Madhi, a professor of vaccinology and
dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at South Africa’s University
of the Witwatersrand, say funding is emerging as the “biggest
threat” to Africa's immunization efforts as the U.S. and other
Western donors tighten aid to poorer countries.
In many countries, aid-funded programs have already scaled back or
shut down, reducing access to basic health services, including
clinics, health workers, cold-chain infrastructure and outreach
services that vaccination campaigns rely on.
“It can’t be that we continue relying on the likes of Gavi Vaccine
Alliance, which has done a tremendous amount of work in terms of
ensuring that there’s increasing uptake of new vaccines,” said Madhi.
“The Gavi Vaccine Alliance itself is already experiencing a
financial crunch. What we need to start putting on the table is what
percentage of the immunization program should be funded by countries
... to ensure that not just a few children are getting vaccinated.”
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