More than eight in ten of the world's babies are now vaccinated — up from two in ten in 1980

It may be the broadest public-health achievement in history, and it happened dose by dose. WHO and UNICEF estimates put global coverage of the third diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis dose — the standard yardstick — at 85 percent of infants in 2025, up from barely 20 percent in 1980. Coverage dipped to 81 percent during the pandemic, then recovered to 85 percent by 2022 and has held there. The WHO estimates vaccination has averted about 154 million deaths over fifty years. One infant in seven still misses out, so the work is unfinished — but the direction, across four and a half decades, is unmistakable.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: institutional program