MANILA – The Philippines is no longer among the top 5 countries in the world with the highest number of children who have not been vaccinated against any disease.

From one million “zero-dose” kids between 2020 and 2022, the figure went down to 163,000 last year, according to data from the United Nations Children’s Fund and World Health Organization (WHO).

The marked improvement in the country’s vaccination rate was traced to the success of the government’s public school-based immunization program against measles, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria and the human papillomavirus which targeted 4.8 million students.

“Unicef commends the Philippine government’s steadfast dedication to leave no child behind. Its decisive leadership and immediate prioritization of immunization have reaped promising results.

This milestone should fuel our resolve to vaccinate even more children, especially those who remain vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases like polio, measles, diphtheria and pertussis,” Unicef Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov said in a statement on Thursday.

Unicef data from 2020 and 2022 had ranked the Philippines fifth—behind India, Nigeria, Indonesia and Ethiopia—among countries worldwide with the highest number of unvaccinated children.

But for 2023, it was outside the top 20, according to Unicef and WHO estimates of national immunization coverage.

Despite this, the WHO Polio Risk Assessment in 2022 to 2023 still puts the Philippines at high-risk. The last outbreak in the country happened between 2019 and 2021.

“Vaccination remains our strongest armor to protect children for life. Together with the Department of Health and partners, our goal is a country and a world where no child is ever paralyzed by polio again, and the infrastructure and systems we’ve built to fight it continue to benefit global health and ensure that children are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases,” WHO country representative Dr. Rui Paulo de Jesus said.