US funding cut for Gavi vaccines may cause ‘over a million deaths’, says CEO

GENEVA – The Gavi vaccine alliance’s chief said on March 27 any cut in US funding risks causing more than a million deaths, following a report that Washington is set to back out.

The decision was included in a 281-page spreadsheet that the severely downsized United States Agency for International Development (USAid) sent to Congress late on March 24.

The document details which grants the agency intends to continue and which it will terminate, according to The New York Times, which obtained a copy.

“We have not received a termination notice from the US government and are engaging with the White House and Congress with a view to securing US$300 million (S$402 million) approved by Congress for our 2025 activities and longer-term funding for Gavi,” the global vaccine organisation’s chief executive Sania Nishtar said by e-mail.

“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,” he warned.

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.

Professor Jennifer Nuzzo, who teaches epidemiology at Brown University, 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.

‘Cruel’

Gavi says it helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against deadly and debilitating infectious diseases.

The United States currently provides around a quarter of the budget of Gavi, a public-private partnership headquartered in Geneva.

Dr David Elliman, a child health researcher at University College London, said cutting funding “is not only cruel, but is not in the interests of anyone”.

“If diseases such as measles and TB increase anywhere in the world, it is a hazard to us all,” he told the Science Media Centre, adding that measles was already rising in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

In the face of the Trump administration’s

sweeping aid cuts

, “institutions are reluctant to speak out in case they are targeted and individuals are self-censoring to protect themselves”, said Dr Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group.

“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,” he added.

“As the Covid-19 pandemic reminds us, infectious diseases cross borders and put all of us at risk.”

‘We will regret this’

Several health researchers also said the cuts would be a poor return on investment.

For every US$1 spent on vaccinations in developing countries where Gavi operates, US$21 will be saved this decade in “health care costs, lost wages and lost productivity from illness and death”, the vaccine group estimates.

A report from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently found that costs averted by vaccine programmes in 73 countries will add up to nearly US$782 billion over the next decade.

Dr Craig Spencer, an Ebola survivor at Brown University, said the loss of US support to Gavi means “kids will die”.

He also warned that Gavi maintains the global stockpile of vaccines for diseases, including Ebola, cholera, yellow fever and more.

“We will regret this,” Dr Spencer wrote on X. AFP