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As US & UK cut funds to Gavi, millions risk losing access to vaccines
As the United States and United Kingdom have cut billions in funds to Gavi, the global vaccination partnership, millions of people across the world are set to lose access to affordable vaccines and hundreds of thousands are at the risk of dying. read more
A woman holds her baby as she receives a shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Mavrovouni camp on Lesbos, Greece. (Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)
The United States and the United Kingdom have announced cuts to their donations to Gavi, the global vaccination partnership, putting millions across the world at the risk of losing access to affordable vaccines.
While American cuts are rooted in the anti-vaccine stance of the Donald Trump administration, British cuts are a result of diversion of funds from foreign aid towards defence in the wake of the increasing security threats from the likes of Russia and China.
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US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Junior has announced the administration will cut around $300 million in annual donations to Gavi, according to Reuters.
The UK has slashed its donations annual contribution to Gavi for the next five years from $438.4 million to $342.5 million, according to The Daily Telegraph.
Estimates have said that millions of people across the world are at the risk of losing access affordable vaccines and hundreds of thousands are at the risk of dying as a result of cuts.
350,000 children at risk of dying, says estimate
Gavi serves some of the poorest people of the world and they are bound to be hit the hardest.
The British cuts alone will threaten 23 million child vaccinations over the next five years and potentially cause 350,000 additional deaths, The Telegraph reported the ONE campaign's estimate as saying.
Gavi has been distributing vaccines for diseases like HPV, malaria, yellow fever, COVID-19, Ebola, measles, and typhoid, in some of the poorest communities of the world. It relies on support from countries and philanthropies.
British International Development Minister Baroness Jenny Chapman told The Telegraph that the cuts are a result of some 'really tough choices' the government had to make.
'We've had to make some really tough choices. But we've decided as a government that we want to invest in defence, because that's the world we are in When we cut the aid budget, we knew we'd have to cut things that are globally good. Gavi would be something it would be great to put more money into in future and I hope we can, but for today this is a good pledge from the UK,' said Chapman.
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China to gain at cost of US & UK
The US vaccine aid cuts are part of the broader foreign aid cuts under the Trump administration.
The Trump administration has hollowed out the US AID that ran the foreign aid programme and has withdrawn from large parts of the world, compromising healthcare, nutritional, and developmental programmes in some of the most vulnerable communities in the world.
The US withdrawal from the world, particularly in the poor and developing parts of the world, will create a vacuum that China will rush to fill in, making foreign aid cuts a self-goal by Trump, Tej Pratap Singh, a scholar of China at the Department of Political Science, Banaras Hindu University, previously told Firstpost.
Humanitarian operations are instruments to peddle soft power the world over and the shutting down of humanitarian operations anywhere is a self-goal, said Singh.
'Developing countries need assistance. If the United States withdraws, China will reach out to these nations and they will be glad to have Chinese support. China has been making inroads in Africa for many years and the US withdrawal is set to increase that. India has been countering Chinese influence in the Global South but countering China needs joint efforts and, in the absence of US involvement, China is set to make good gains,' said Singh.
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