World Immunisation Week 2025 24-30 April

Immunisation for All is Humanly Possible 

Vaccines are one of humanity’s greatest achievements. 

Over the last 50 years, essential vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives. That’s 6 lives a minute, every day, for five decades. 

In these 50 years, vaccination accounts for 40% of the improvement in infant survival, and more children now live to see their first birthday and beyond than at any other time in human history. Measles vaccine alone accounts for 60% of those lives saved. 

There are more lives to be saved by building on these achievements. The future of immunisation means not only reaching millions of children who have never received a single shot, but protecting grandparents from influenza, babies from malaria and RSV, pregnant mothers from tetanus, and young girls from HPV.  

We are at a watershed moment in the history of global health. Hard-won gains in stamping out diseases that are preventable through vaccination are in jeopardy. Decades of collaborative efforts between governments, aid agencies, scientists, healthcare workers, and parents got us to where we are today –– a world where we’ve eradicated smallpox and almost eradicated polio. 

Under the banner, ‘Immunisation for All is Humanly Possible’, World Immunisation Week 2025 aims to ensure even more children, adolescents, adults – and their communities – are protected against vaccine-preventable diseases. 

Vaccines are proof that less disease, more life is possible when we put our minds to it.  

It’s time to show the world that Immunisation for All is Humanly Possible. 

Australian Data as of 30/1/2025 – When enough people are vaccinated against a disease to prevent it from spreading, this is known as ‘herd immunity.’ Herd immunity offers indirect protection to: 

• unvaccinated people, including children too young to be vaccinated
• people unable to be vaccinated for a range of valid medical reasons 
• people for whom vaccination has not been fully effective. 

To achieve herd immunity for infectious diseases, coverage needs to be high. For example, measles is highly infectious, so it needs a coverage rate of about 92% to 94%.

Australia’s national aspirational coverage target is 95%.  Reaching this aspirational target will give us enough herd immunity to stop the spread of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

How we have been tracking

We are close to meeting our aspirational target of 95% for all age groups, having almost achieved 95% coverage for one-year-olds and five-year-olds. 

Current Status: 

• 95.03% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander five-year-olds are covered.
• Coverage rates for all five-year-olds are 93.76%. 
• Coverage rates for all two-year-olds are at 90.72%
• Coverage rates for all one-year-olds are at 92.49%.

Immunization has saved 6 lives every minute since 1974 

Vaccines protect against more than 30 life-threatening diseases 

22 million children missed their first measles vaccine in 2023 

World wide data

More information for patients can be found at https://skai.org.au/ Sharing Knowledge About Immunisations