On Thursday, Gavi’s CEO warned that the US withholding financing may kill over a million people and threaten lives everywhere.
The New York Times reported that Washington plans to cut Gavi financing as President Donald Trump’s two-month-old administration cuts foreign aid.
The significantly downsized US Agency for International Development gave Congress a 281-page spreadsheet on Monday night with the conclusion.
According to Gavi CEO Sania Nishtar, the partnership had “not received a termination notice from the US government”. Nishtar stated that 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”.
She warned that a US decrease to US Agency might kill over a million people from preventable diseases and imperil lives worldwide from disease outbreaks.
Health professionals and organizations worry that eliminating Gavi’s funding would cost the world more and reverse 25 years of progress against several fatal diseases.
According to Brown University epidemiology professor Jennifer Nuzzo, the “mind-bogglingly short-sighted proposal” would have “devastating consequences for the health of children everywhere”.
She stated that US assistance for Gavi’s vaccine initiatives is not charity but a cost-effective investment to avert fatal and costly epidemics.
It vaccinates almost half the world’s children against Covid-19, Ebola, malaria, rabies, polio, cholera, TB, typhoid, and yellow fever, according to Gavi.
A percent of Geneva-based Gavi’s budget comes from the US. Child health researcher David Elliman at University College London said slashing funding “is not only cruel, but is not in the interests of anyone”.
He told Science Media Centre that measles was spreading in the US, Europe, and worldwide, adding that “if diseases such as measles and TB increase anywhere in the world, it is a hazard to us all”.
After the Trump administration’s aid cuts, “institutions are reluctant to speak out in case they are targeted and individuals are self-censoring to protect themselves,” said Oxford Vaccine Group chairman Andrew Pollard.
He said, “We must wake up to the moral case for supporting the remarkable global health efforts that help the poor of the world, but also remember that it is in our own interest.” As the COVID-19 pandemic shows, infectious diseases penetrate boundaries and threaten everyone.
A number of health researchers suggested the cuts would be a bad investment. The vaccine association forecasts that investing $1 in immunizations in underdeveloped countries will save $21 in “health care costs, lost wages and lost productivity from illness and death” this decade.
