A recent study reveals that childhood vaccination coverage in the European Union has fallen in many member states, raising fears of resurging preventable diseases amid pandemic-related disruptions.
Childhood vaccination rates across the European Union have slipped in recent years, according to a study published in The Lancet Regional Health, Europe, raising concern that gains built up over decades could begin to unravel. Researchers examined uptake of seven routine childhood vaccines across all 27 EU countries from 1980 to 2024, drawing on World Health Organisation and UNICEF data.
The analysis found that the bloc has still reached historically high levels of protection overall, but the pattern is no longer uniformly rising. In 2024, Luxembourg and Portugal had coverage of at least 95% for all seven vaccines studied, while Romania remained below 80%, underscoring wide differences between member states.
What changed most sharply was the recent direction of travel. The study found that 16 EU countries recorded declines in vaccination rates for at least four of the seven vaccines, with Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden seeing falls across all seven. The biggest drops were seen in vaccines against meningitis B and polio, followed by hepatitis B and diphtheria-tetanus-polio combinations.
The researchers said most of the decline began between 2019 and 2022, overlapping with the Covid period. While they did not try to pin down a single cause, they said the pandemic may have played a role through health system disruption, while UNICEF has separately warned that confidence in childhood vaccines has fallen across Europe and Central Asia, particularly among younger adults and women. UNICEF said nearly one million children in the region have missed one or more routine vaccinations since the pandemic began, adding to fears of a resurgence in preventable diseases.
Health experts have long warned that falling coverage can quickly reopen the door to outbreaks of measles, whooping cough and polio-like illnesses. The study said vaccination has prevented more than 154 million deaths worldwide over the past half-century, most of them among children, and argued that the immediate challenge now is not just restoring coverage, but keeping it high enough to remain sustainable.
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