Trump administration to cut vaccine support to developing countries: report

ILE - In this file photo taken Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2019, health officials prepare to vaccine residents of the Malawi village of Tomali, where young children become test subjects for the world's first vaccine against malaria. The World Health Organization recommended that the world’s first malaria vaccine be given to children across Africa, in a move officials hope will spur the stalled progress against efforts to curb the spread of the parasitic disease. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)

Washington — U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is set to cut funding to Gavi, the global health organization that provides vaccines across the developing world, a report said Wednesday.

The decision was included in a 281-page spreadsheet that the severely downsized United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sent to Congress on Monday night.

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.

The United States will also significantly scale back support for malaria programs but will maintain some funding streams for treating HIV, tuberculosis, and providing food aid in countries facing conflict and natural disasters.

Only 869 of more than 6,000 USAID employees remain on active duty, according to the Times. The administration has decided to continue about 900 grants while ending over 5,340.

The newspaper estimated a $40 billion reduction in the annual budget of the agency, which has since been absorbed by its parent department, the State Department.

“#USA support for @Gavi is vital. With US support, we can save over 8 million lives over the next 5 years and give millions of children a better chance at a healthy, prosperous future,” Gavi, a public-private partnership headquartered in Geneva, wrote on X in response to the report.

“The withdrawal of US financial support for Gavi would severely threaten the tremendous progress made in reducing deaths due to vaccine-preventable diseases and would increase the risk of outbreaks here in the United States,” added William Moss, executive director of the international vaccines access center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

It estimated that US support over the past 25 years has helped save 18 million lives and enabled 19 countries to transition away from Gavi’s support, with some becoming donors themselves. The United States provides around a quarter of the organization’s budget.