By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

More than 18 million children in 36 countries across Africa and Asia were vaccinated as part of “The Big Catch-Up,” a global initiative launched in April 2023 and concluded last month.

The campaign delivered 100 million vaccine doses, and included these vaccines, according to a fact sheet: Pentavalent (DTP-Hep-Hib), measles or measles-rubella, IPV, bOPV, rotavirus, PCV, MenA, and yellow fever.

The campaign included “targeted follow up to ensure that children recieved [sic] not only a first dose, but ideally all doses needed in a series.”

The fact sheet did not specify how many vaccines could be administered during a single visit, or if the campaign included any monitoring of the children for side effects or injuries.

Of the 18.3 million children vaccinated, 12.3 million “zero-dose children” had not previously received any vaccines, and 15 million had not received a measles vaccine, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The initiative focused on children ages 1-5 who had missed routine vaccinations.

The WHO, UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance — backed by the Gates Foundation — launched the initiative “to address vaccination declines driven largely by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Final figures are still being tallied, but the organizations said they were “on track” to exceed their goal of vaccinating 21 million children. They released their numbers on April 24 to kick off World Immunization Week.

Kennedy clashes with Sen. Shaheen over Gavi funding

During a U.S. Senate hearing last week, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clashed with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) over Kennedy’s 2025 decision to block U.S. funding for Gavi.

In a June 2025 prerecorded video for Gavi officials, Kennedy said that the U.S. funding would be withheld until Gavi “re-earned the public trust,” citing concerns over vaccine safety.

“In its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety,” Kennedy said. “When the science was inconvenient, Gavi ignored the science.”

The U.S. gave $300 million to Gavi in 2024, and the Biden administration, also in 2024, had pledged over $1.5 billion to the organization over five years — funding that Kennedy has since withheld.

Shaheen praised Gavi for vaccinating 1.2 billion children during its existence and for being the “world’s leading purchaser of U.S. produced vaccines.”

Shaheen said Gavi representatives warned her that “if this funding is not released, millions of children will die.” She asked Kennedy to commit to working with her and Gavi representatives to restore the funds.

Kennedy said concerns about Gavi’s use of funds must first be addressed. Gavi funnels money to the WHO, “which we got out of because it was doing such a miserable job,” he said.

DTP vaccine injury lawsuits led to legal immunity for vaccine makers

Kenney also told Shaheen that Gavi is distributing a vaccine with known serious side effects to millions of children when a safer alternative exists.

“Their biggest vaccine is now a DTP vaccine … an old version that was discontinued in this country because it was causing brain injury,” he said. “We discontinued it. Europe discontinued it. They’re still giving it to 161 million African and Asian children a year.”

Kennedy said he asked Gavi why they didn’t use the safer version instead — the DTaP vaccine. “They said they didn’t want to do that.”

DTP vaccines distributed in Africa typically contain the “whole-cell” pertussis vaccine to protect against whooping cough. These vaccines contain an inactivated version of the entire B. pertussis organism, most containing aluminum salts as an adjuvant and thimerosal as a preservative.

In the U.S. and other high-income countries, the whole-cell vaccine was replaced with the acellular DTP vaccine in the 1990s because the vaccine was linked to both minor and serious side effects.

The controversy surrounding whole-cell DTP vaccines drives major U.S. vaccine legislation.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, serious and widespread concern grew about the safety of the DTP shot, after many children experienced seizures, serious brain injury or death following DTP vaccination.

Between 1980 and 1986, lawsuits seeking more than $3 billion in damages were filed against vaccine manufacturers, most for the DTP vaccines made by Wyeth (now Pfizer).

After the lawsuits revealed that Wyeth knew of the risks, juries began authorizing large payouts to families of children injured by the vaccine. As the lawsuits threatened to bankrupt the vaccine insurance industry, manufacturers began to exit the industry.

Congress responded by passing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program — a no-fault system intended to give the pharmaceutical industry broad protection from liability while compensating children injured by compulsory vaccines.

In 1991, the Institute of Medicine concluded that evidence showed a causal relation between the DTP shot and acute encephalopathy, although scientists said there was not enough evidence to say that it causes long-term neurological damage.

DTP cheaper, possibly more effective — but linked to more serious injuries

In 1991, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration licensed the diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine — which caused fewer side effects than its predecessor vaccine.

In 1997, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended the DTaP vaccine over the whole-cell DTP vaccine for infants, replacing the older formulation entirely in the U.S.

At the time, the committee cited research suggesting that the whole-cell DTP vaccine was documented to commonly cause erythema, swelling and pain at the injection site, fever and other mild systemic events, as well as serious adverse events — including convulsions and hypotonic hyporesponsive episodes. The serious events occurred in 1 in 1,750 doses administered.

Acellular vaccines are not as effective against whooping cough, reportedly because immunity wanes more quickly and because the pathogen has adapted to the vaccines. They are also more expensive to produce.

Some experts argue that despite higher rates of adverse events, their higher efficacy rates make the whole-cell DTP shots better candidates for mass vaccination campaigns like “The Big Catch-Up.”

“Weighing the risk-benefit of different types of vaccines is often tricky,” said Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense. “It involves the prevalence of the disease and access to medical care should the vaccine fail to protect, or adverse events manifest.”

Jablonowski said cost is also usually a factor, “as the least hazardous often cost the most. It is a sad state when the more vulnerable take on the greater hazard for diseases that are preventable or treatable by other means.”

Related articles in The Defender

• RFK Jr. Clashes With Lawmakers Over Measles, COVID and Chronic Disease
• ‘The Big Catch-up’: Chelsea Clinton Partners With WHO, Gates Foundation on ‘Largest Childhood Immunization Effort Ever’
• Gates-Funded Gavi Takes Aim at Memes, Calls Them ‘Disinformation Super-Spreaders’
• Seeing Is Believing: What the Data Reveal About Deaths Following COVID Vaccine Rollouts Around the World
• Gates Pledges $1.6 Billion for More Vaccines for Poor Countries, as RFK Jr. Stands by U.S. Decision to Cut Funding
• Pediatrician Slams $11.9 Billion Plan to Vaccinate 500 Million Children by 2030
• Gates-Funded Plan to Vaccinate 86 Million Girls Against HPV Will ‘Unleash Mass Casualty Event,’ Critic Says

The post Gates-Funded ‘Big Catch-Up’ Delivers 100 Million Vaccine Doses — Including High-Risk DTP Vaccine Not Used in U.S. appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

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