Families holding their vaccination cards wait to get vaccinated against measles in the Lunyeka health centre, DRC.
Image: PABLO GARRIGOS/MSF
The US cutting funding to Gavi, an organisation that provides vaccines to the world's poorest countries, could result in more than a million deaths and will endanger lives everywhere, the group's CEO warned.
The news that Washington is planning to end funding for Gavi, first reported in the New York Times, comes as the two-month-old administration of President Donald Trump aggressively slashes foreign aid.
The decision was included in a 281-page spreadsheet that the severely downsized United States Agency for International Development sent to Congress on Monday night.
Gavi's chief executive Sania Nishtar told AFP the alliance had "not received a termination notice from the US government".
The alliance was "engaging with the White House and Congress with a view to securing $300 million approved by Congress for our 2025 activities and longer-term funding", Nishtar said.
"A cut in Gavi's funding from the US would have a disastrous impact on global health security, potentially resulting in over a million deaths from preventable diseases and endangering lives everywhere from dangerous disease outbreaks," she said.
Health experts and organisations have warned that cutting Gavi's funding would ultimately cost the world more money and set back a quarter-century of progress in the fight against many deadly diseases.
Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology at Brown University in the US, said the "mind-bogglingly short-sighted proposal" would have "devastating consequences for the health of children everywhere".
"US support for Gavi's vaccination efforts is not charity -- it's a cost-effective investment to prevent deadly and costly outbreaks that can come here," she said.
Gavi says it helps vaccinate more than half the world's children against infectious diseases including Covid-19, Ebola, malaria, rabies, polio, cholera, tuberculosis (TB), typhoid and yellow fever.
The US currently provides about a quarter of the budget of Gavi, a public-private partnership headquartered in Geneva.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday Gavi is estimated to have saved the lives of 17 million children over the last 25 years. However, as reported in international media, and per Gavi’s own estimates, the loss of US support to Gavi was projected to deny about 75 million children routine vaccinations in the next five years, with more than 1.2 million children potentially dying as a result.
For more than 50 years, MSF has been vaccinating children who live in some of the world’s hardest-to-reach areas, including war zones, refugee camps, and rural areas cut off from health care. MSF said this decision will risk leaving these children unprotected.
While MSF does not accept US government or Gavi funding and will not be directly affected by cuts or freezes to the program, more than half of the vaccines MSF uses in its projects come from ministries of health and are procured through Gavi.
Dr. Carrie Teicher, chief programs officer at MSF USA, said: “The US government’s decision to end its support for Gavi threatens to undermine progress made over the last 25 years and will leave even more children all around the world vulnerable to deadly preventable diseases like measles, pneumonia, and diphtheria.
"The consequences of this political decision will be catastrophic. Vaccines are one of the most important and cost-effective lifesaving medical tools available. Ending support for Gavi will needlessly hurt children and undermine health systems around the world that rely on Gavi for vaccines.
"Far too many children already miss out on their routine vaccinations. Even with frequent routine and emergency vaccination efforts, we continue to see children fall ill during outbreaks of preventable diseases like diphtheria in Nigeria and measles in South Sudan—outbreaks that could be curbed and lives that could be saved if more children were vaccinated.
“Vaccine coverage is only now getting back on track following disruptions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Undermining immunization at this critical time would prove devastating.”
*Additional reporting Staff Writer
Cape Times