RFK Jr.’s halt to U.S. funding for Gavi vaccine alliance a “travesty and a nightmare,” experts warn

Johannesburg – Every four years, representatives of the world alliance of governments, pharmaceutical manufacturers, United Nations agencies and philanthropic organizations known as GaviThis helps get vaccines for people who need them, come together to lock the new financing commitments. Like this year’s meeting in Brussels ended on Wednesday, the United States Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that any funding from Washington would cease.

In a three -minute video message that Kennedy common on social networksHe said that the Trump administration interrupted the organization’s financing because it had “neglected the key question of vaccine safety”.

Kennedy, who sought to be distant from the “Anti-Vaccin” label, has a manufacturing story misleading about Vaccine safety and was linked to Anti-vaccination activism groups.

Gavi said He helped vaccinate more than 1.1 billion children in 78 low -income countries and prevented more than 18.8 million deaths since its creation 25 years ago. Its objective is to obtain vaccines, in particular new vaccines, to populations which would find it difficult to afford them or to access them otherwise.

Kennedy argued in the video that Gavi “neglected the key question of vaccine safety” and that “when the security problems of vaccines came before Gavi, Gavi treated them not as a patient’s health problem, but as a public relations problem”.

Kennedy accused Gavi of having ignored science and declared that the alliance had to “justify the $ 8 billion that the United States has given it since 2001”.

The United States has long been among the main contributors of the government to the funding of Gavi, which also comes from private organizations.

Biden administration had engaged in $ 1.6 billion in funding For the organization from 2026 to 2030 – an amount roughly equal to the funding promised by the Private Gates Foundation – and the shock and indignation are reflected through the conference in Brussels after Kennedy’s announcement.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, said on social networks that this decision would have “devastating consequences”. He called on the US Congress to continue to finance Gavi, warning that if it were not the case, “more sick children will be late at school”, and there would be “more overcrowded hospital services and ultimately more parents in mourning”.

“If the congress allows this to happen, the consequences will be devastating,” said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Gates Foundation said. “Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, avoidable deaths will occur, especially in mothers and children.”

Dr. ATUL GAWANDE, public health researcher and surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who previously had a seat on the GAVI board of directors, said Kennedy would be held personally responsible for the results of the financing of the interrupted American government, which he described as “parody and a nightmare”.

“I would expect to see significant changes and reductions in access to secure and effective vaccines for children, in the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world,” anonymous official, an American official with decades of experience in world health and vaccination programs, told CBS. “Kennedy’s rhetoric on vaccine safety is not useful and is likely to fuel the hesitation of vaccines in the minds of people around the world, where we will surely see more uncontrolled epidemics of prudently vaccination diseases. It is very unhappy.”

The UN World Health Organization warned since 2019 One of the main threats to global public health.

The objective of this year’s conference was to obtain funding to achieve the objective of the organization of more than 90% global coverage with essential vaccines for a wide range of diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus and measles. Gavi obtained more than $ 9 billion in funding commitments on Wednesday, but he hoped to earn $ 11.9 billion for the next five years, with the aim of immunizing 500 million children worldwide.

Other countries recognized the importance of Gavi and increased their contributions at the conference on Wednesday.

The garnish on this list was the United Kingdom

British Foreign Minister David Lammy announced $ 1.7 billion for the next five years, making the new greatest donor in the United Kingdom.

Ghana President John Darami Mahama, addressing the Gavi conference on Wednesday, began by detailing his younger brother’s struggle with polio and stigma associated with the disease, which was practically eradicated worldwide thanks to the vaccination programs launched in the late 1980s.

“I understand the importance of vaccines,” Mahama told delegations.

When his brother was diagnosed, access to vaccines in Ghana was close to zero, but the president said that, thanks to a partnership with Gavi, 97% of the population was now vaccinated.

He said officials were still working to reach 3% – around “65,000 children who are in remote areas, difficult to reach wild vaccines in life” – and that Ghana was planning to no longer need Gavi support by 2030.

Mahama concluded his remarks with a news comparison, saying: “A spiritual bomber B-2 who dropped the bombs on Iran cost $ 2.13 billion” and that he had done the calculation, adding: “The world can surely afford the value of four B-2 bombers to save 500 million children. This is a choice that we have to make.”