World Immunization Week 2025

The WHO South-East Asia Region is home to over a quarter of the world’s population. It has 11 Member States, which are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Timor-Leste. The WHO Regional Office (SEARO) has been working with the Member States to address persisting and emerging epidemiological challenges and targeting vaccine preventable diseases.

WHO is calling on countries in the WHO South-East Asia Region to further strengthen immunization efforts at all levels; as the COVID-19 pandemic had highlighted fragilities in immunization and health systems and led to a decline in vaccination coverages. “The focus must be on tailored approaches, identified in consultation with the affected communities - local solutions to local issues. No matter how challenging or remote the setting is, we will need to find new ways to reach children, mothers and other people most at risk of life-threatening diseases,” said Ms Saima Wazed, Regional Director WHO South-East Asia.

In recent decades, countries of the WHO South-East Asia Region have maintained their polio-free status since being certified in 2014 by an independent body of experts and elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus since 2016. Measles elimination has been achieved and maintained in five countries while two of these countries have also achieved rubella elimination. Four countries have been verified as having achieved hepatitis B control through immunization in 2019 and two countries in 2024, respectively. All countries of the Region have introduced between two and eight new or underutilized vaccines since 2011.

To restore and enhance routine immunization coverage to and beyond pre-pandemic level, countries have been making significant efforts. In recent years, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, DPR Korea, Nepal, Thailand and Timor-Leste conducted multiple national, subnational, and catch-up immunization campaigns with measles and rubella, polio, Japanese Encephalitis, cholera, and other vaccines given in childhood immunization programmes. Countries increased the age limit for vaccination to up to five years in these catch campaigns to protect children who missed vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Countries have continued to introduce new vaccines including human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) and typhoid conjugate vaccine (TCV) to further combat vaccine-preventable diseases. 

The theme for WIW 2025 is “Immunization for all is humanly possible.”  Under this banner of it aims to ensure even more children, adolescents, adults - and their communities - are protected against vaccine-preventable diseases. 

As highlighted by Ms Saima Wazed, Regional Director WHO South-East Asia, “we are now at crossroad between sustainable development and loss of hard-earned greatest immunization achievements. The recent changes in donor budgets in global health has put a severe strain on immunization programmes everywhere, and has also affected disease surveillance, laboratory networks and outbreak response capacities. The confluence of these could lead to tragic outcomes, and we urge national governments to boost their investments to ensure the long-term sustainability of immunization.”

Major Immunization Achievements in the WHO South-East Asia Region on the occasion of World Immunization Week (WIW) 2025