This is what could happen to a child who doesn't get vaccinated

Pneumonia struck first. Then tonsillitis spiraled into sepsis. Malaria battered him next, and after treatment, the other illnesses flared back up again. This unvaccinated 2-year-old boy is trapped in a relentless cycle.

"I was very sad. I knew these things could be prevented by vaccines," his mother, Alzhraa Fadul, says through an interpreter.

"I feel guilty that I can't do anything to help my son," the 26-year-old adds. "I'm worried about my son every day. I should've gotten vaccines for my son."

But there was nowhere for Fadul to get them. Her family lives in an abandoned classroom with 10 strangers in Kosti, Sudan, where vaccination campaigns were once hailed as a "remarkable achievement" and earned the country a coveted polio-free status one decade ago.

That all changed in April 2023 when civil war broke out. Sudan rapidly rose to the top of the list of countries with the highest proportions of unvaccinated newborns — claiming an unwanted leading position last year, with more than half its babies missing all immunizations. Fadul's son is one of the 14 million kids worldwide who don't receive any vaccinations.

"We're really in the eye of the storm here," Sheldon Yett says. Yett, who is UNICEF's representative in Sudan, adds that more than 70% of the country's health facilities in conflict-affected areas are in "ruins." "Children who would have otherwise been able to brave the many things that Sudan throws at children are far more vulnerable. Life is pretty grim."

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The Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea and Yemen join Sudan among the hardest-hit countries with immunization programs in dire straits. Two of those countries — Sudan and Yemen — are active war zones too.

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In all, about 55% of unvaccinated kids live in conflict-affected areas. "Being a child growing up in those contexts, you've got the odds stacked up against you," says Naor Bar-Zeev, a pediatrician and v