“We have not received a termination notice from the U.S. government,” said Dr. Sania Nishtar, Gavi’s Chief Executive. In a statement on Thursday, Nishtar said Gavi was “engaging with the White House and Congress,” hoping to secure the $300 million approved by Congress for their activities this year, as well as longer-term funding.
Nishtar said that a cut to Gavi’s funding would be “disastrous,” potentially resulting in more than 1 million deaths from preventable diseases.
The U.S. had pledged to provide more than $1.5 billion through 2030 to Gavi, founded in 2000 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the World Bank.
The Geneva-based group says it has helped vaccinate more than 1 billion children in 78 poorer countries against diseases including measles, Ebola and malaria, averting nearly 19 million deaths.
Dr. David Elliman, a children’s health expert at University College London, called the reported U.S. withdrawal of funding from Gavi “cruel" and “utterly misguided."
“If diseases such as measles and TB increase anywhere in the world, it is a hazard to us all,” he said.
The USAID spreadsheet lists more than 5,341 awards that the U.S. is planning to terminate to groups including UNICEF, the International Societies of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Save the Children, Doctors of the World and Action Against Hunger.
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