Kennedy announced this week that U.S. is pulling all funding from Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, dealing a big blow to health systems and vaccine access in lower-income countries—and likely push other major donors to scramble to fill the gap.
This is by no means a surprise as Kennedy is a well-known decades-long opponent of vaccines.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is a world‐class public‑private partnership created in 2000 to vastly expand vaccine access in poorer countries. To date, it’s helped immunize over 1.B kids, and preventing more than 18.8M future deaths.
In 2023 alone, Gavi-backed immunization efforts averted about 1.3M deaths and delivered lifesaving vaccines like pneumococcus, rotavirus, Hib, and HPV across 57 developing countries.
Vaccines are among the most cost-effective interventions out there with ROIs of 27:1 for many vaccines and all with an ROI greater than 4:1.
Overall, Gavi’s programs have generated roughly $220 billion in economic benefits since 2000.
About the GAVI Alliance
Up until now the US has been a backbone of Gavi’s funding, being the 3rd largest donor contributing 15% of their budget. Below are the other countries in the top tier of donors
- UK: $2B
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: $1.5B
- United States – $1.3B (now $0)
- Norway – $830M
- Germany – $773M
Under the Biden Administration the U.S. made a pledge of $1.6B for 2026–2030. That pledge is now $0.
If other donors don’t step up to keep funding vaccines and or entire vaccine campaigns will need to be scaled back or paused. Immunization coverage could drop, leading to worsened outbreaks of measles, pneumonia, rotavirus, and future blasts of vaccine-preventable diseases.
Gavi’s effort isn’t charity, it’s an evidence-based public health intervention with a very high ROI and a source of the US’ former soft power. This move, along with the US abandonment of WHO participation and dues paying (Kennedy ended that a few months ago) and Rubio’s elimination of the US Agency for International Development isn’t just bad for global health – it’s a squandering of decades worth of US global soft power.
