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Monitoring progress in immunization coverage is essential for refining equity-oriented health programmes. However, monitoring progress towards immunization targets has been challenging. In this spatiotemporal Bayesian analysis, Nguyen and colleagues use data from Demographic and Health Surveys to provide estimations for childhood immunization trends for 38 African countries between 2000 and 2030. Assessing immunization coverage for key indicators (BCG, MCV1, DPT3, Polio3, and Full immunization), it was found that immunization coverage has improved in many settings. However, substantial gaps persist within and between countries, and projections suggest that 12 of the countries are unlikely to achieve global targets for full immunization by 2030. Notably, several high-Socio-Demographic Index countries are projected to miss these immunization targets. Nguyen et al. 2025
Image Credit: modified from Adrian Vieriu, Pexels
Citation: (2025) PLoS Medicine Issue Image | Vol. 22(7) August 2025. PLoS Med 22(7): ev22.i07. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pmed.v22.i07
Published: August 7, 2025
Copyright: © 2025 . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Monitoring progress in immunization coverage is essential for refining equity-oriented health programmes. However, monitoring progress towards immunization targets has been challenging. In this spatiotemporal Bayesian analysis, Nguyen and colleagues use data from Demographic and Health Surveys to provide estimations for childhood immunization trends for 38 African countries between 2000 and 2030. Assessing immunization coverage for key indicators (BCG, MCV1, DPT3, Polio3, and Full immunization), it was found that immunization coverage has improved in many settings. However, substantial gaps persist within and between countries, and projections suggest that 12 of the countries are unlikely to achieve global targets for full immunization by 2030. Notably, several high-Socio-Demographic Index countries are projected to miss these immunization targets. Nguyen et al. 2025
Image Credit: modified from Adrian Vieriu, Pexels