Over 20 million children across the globe have not been vaccinated against measles, tetanus, rubella or polio. Half of them come from ten countries, five of which are in Africa.
Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Africa have the largest numbers of unvaccinated or under-vaccinated children on the continent.
There are several reasons for this. Aside from the public not understanding the benefits of vaccination and not trusting the health systems, access to care is also limited. In addition, there are too few health care workers for timely vaccinations, infrastructure is deficient and data is of a poor quality.