Our vision is of a world where no child suffers from a disease that could be prevented by vaccines. Over the next five years, our partnership has an ambitious goal to develop and utilise effective ways to overcome the barriers that are stopping all children from being fully immunised, with a focus on Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Overstretched health systems and lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the biggest global decline in immunisation for 30 years [WHO]. Nowhere has this been felt more starkly than in Africa. The continent has the highest number of ‘zero dose’ children – those who have never had any routine vaccination – in the world: 8.7 million children. More than a third live in Nigeria and Ethiopia. The combined impacts of the pandemic, poverty, climate change, instability and conflict are disrupting vaccination campaigns across both countries.

When children aren’t vaccinated, they are left vulnerable to diseases like polio, measles and cholera – all preventable with vaccines. And the impact goes wider. In communities with lots of unvaccinated children, diseases can spread quickly and turn into epidemics.