Millions of children at risk as global vaccine rates fall, study finds

A health worker administers a dose of the measles vaccine to a child in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Photograph: Carlos Sanchez/Reuters

Millions of children worldwide are at risk of lethal diseases because vaccine coverage has stalled or reversed amid persistent health inequalities and soaring levels of misinformation and hesitancy, the largest study of its kind has found.

Major progress in rolling out jabs to billions of children in all corners of the globe over the last five decades has prevented the deaths of 154 million children, according to an analysis published in the Lancet.