US to end funding for kids’ vaccines in poor countries

President Donald Trump’s administration plans to end US funding for Gavi, an organisation that helps buy vaccines for children in poor countries, and will scale back efforts to combat malaria, among thousands of cuts revealed in a document prepared by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The administration will continue to fund some grants that pay for drugs that treat HIV and tuberculosis and provide food aid to nations where civil wars and natural disasters are occurring, according to the document, which was first reported by the New York Times.

The document, which was reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday, lists international aid programmes that will be dismantled as well as those that will be retained.

Washington has drastically scaled back foreign aid since Trump took office, with around 80% of contracts abruptly cut to align with the new administration’s ‘America First’ policy, sowing chaos, confusion and suffering worldwide.

The 281-page document lists 898 programmes that will remain active, totalling $78 billion in spending – much of which it says has already been disbursed. In total, 5,341 awards will be terminated, representing just under $76 billion, the document says.

Around $48 billion of that total has been obligated, it adds.

The US government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gavi said that US support for its operations was “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,” it said in a statement on X.

On Monday, the United Nations warned cuts in international aid could bring an end to decades of progress in fighting child mortality, and even reverse the trend.

Although the annual report from UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the World Bank does not single out the United States, it comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has axed the vast majority of the programmes carried out by USAID, America’s main overseas aid agency with a former annual budget of $42.8 billion.

“The global health community cannot be worried enough at the situation that we are seeing,” Fouzia Shafique, UNICEF’s Associate Director of Health, said.

The report warns the consequences of aid money cuts will be the worst in countries where infant mortality rates are already the highest, such as in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia.

“Simply put, if support for life-saving services is not sustained, many countries can expect a resurgence of newborn and child deaths,” the report said. In 2023, mortality of children under age five continued to drop, with 4.8 million deaths recorded, including 2.3 million newborn babies under a month old, according to the report.

The number of such deaths fell below five million for the first time in 2022, and the new record low marks a 52 percent decline since 2000.

But Shafique insisted that “4.8 million is 4.8 million too many.”

Since 2015, progress in fighting child mortality has slowed as aid money was redirected towards fighting Covid -- and this could be just the start of a dangerous pattern.

“Bringing preventable child deaths to a record low is a remarkable achievement. But without the right policy choices and adequate investment, we risk reversing these hard-earned gains,” UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

“We cannot allow that to happen,” she added.

Some negative impacts of the funding cuts are being felt already, such as health care worker shortages, clinic closures, vaccination program disruptions, and a lack of essential supplies, such as malaria treatments.

Ethiopia, for instance, is enduring a big increase in malaria cases, said Shafique.

But the country is facing an acute shortage of diagnostic tests, insecticide-treated nets for beds and funding for spraying campaigns against disease-carrying mosquitos.

A separate report by the

same organisations found a stubbornly high number of stillbirths -- babies who die after 28 weeks of pregnancy, before or during childbirth -- with a total of around 1.9 million such deaths in 2023.

Agencies