As Member States across the region commemorate African Vaccination Week (AVW) 2026, the theme "For every generation, vaccines work" underscores a simple yet powerful truth: the choice we make today to vaccinate, protect not only individuals but the generations that follow. Over the last 50 years, vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives globally—a testament to the collective choice of caregivers, health workers, communities, governments and global immunization partners to prioritize protection from vaccine preventable diseases.

Following substantial declines in immunization coverage due to the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions, 24 priority countries in the African Region launched the Big Catch-Up (BCU) initiative in 2023 to reach children aged 12-59 months who missed life-saving vaccines, restore immunization coverage to pre-pandemic levels while strengthening immunization systems towards achieving the Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) goals. By December 2025, these efforts reached an estimated 8.75M zero-dose children (ZD), representing 71% of the regional target. 

These achievements have been driven by strong national leadership and multi-stakeholder coordination, integrated service delivery, data driven approaches & digital innovations, and community-centered strategies—many of these strategies amplified through platforms such as the AVW.

The following success stories highlight how country-led action, supported by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) technical expertise and partner collaboration, translated commitment into coverage and progress into protection. This compilation summarizes learnings and best practices sourced from country technical reports, webinar presentations and quarterly reporting.