UK pledge to global vaccine effort falls £400m to £1.25bn amid raft of aid cuts

The United Kingdom has reduced the funding of a global vaccine alliance which immunizes millions of children of 400 million pounds sterling, in the middle of a wider raft foreign help cuts that activists fear that it will cost lives.

GAVI – Formerly the world alliance for Vaccines and immuns – help buy vaccines and deliver them to low -income countries. It set the vaccination objective of 500 million children against diseases, including measles, cholera and malaria over the next five years, which saves eight million lives.

Gavi aims to raise $ 9 billion (6.6 billion pounds sterling) for the next five years. The United Kingdom is one of the greatest donors in Gavi And promised 1.25 billion pounds sterling between 2026 and 2030. However, 1.65 billion pounds sterling were promised between 2021 and 2025.

The only campaign, a group of poverty and health campaign estimates that the reduction could lead to 365,000 additional deaths over five years and 23 million less children’s vaccinations, based on Gavi costs.

Adrian Lovett, British Executive Director of the Campaign, said: “This is a significant commitment from the United Kingdom to Gavi, a vital force in the fight against avoidable disease. Today’s announcement will save an incredible life of 1.1 million and will lead to 72 million incredible children around the world.”

“But despite this good news, we see the severe impact of the deep cut at the level of global aid. The contribution of the United Kingdom to Gavi could have saved nearly 400,000 lives more if it had been maintained at the same level as before. And other impossible choices are looming.

While Gavi collects funds from a mixture of governments, philanthropists and private donors, notably Shell, Tiktok, Coca Cola and even the Mormone Church, the British government has regularly exceeded the list of greatest donors. And the impact of the donation reduction will probably be felt even more with the United States having already pointed out that it wanted to delete GAVI funding from its 2026 budget, with Donald Trump Having already reduced billions of people from American contributions to foreign aid.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy said: “Gavi’s world impact is undeniable. More than a billion vaccinated children, more than 18 million saved lives, more than $ 250 billion injected into the world economy.

“I am extremely proud of the role that the United Kingdom has played to reach these steps.”

Dr. Philip Goodwin, Director General of the British Committee of UNICEF, said: “This commitment from the British government will bring Gavi closer, the alliance of vaccines, closer to its ambitious objective of reaching 500 other children in the world … However, cuts to the cuts assistance budget Always constitute a serious threat to children.

“We urge the British government to maximize this GAVI engagement by also funding other critical health services that make vaccination fully effective.

If he finds himself with a funding deficit, GAVI will be faced with difficult choices about what to contribute and to reduce – including the balance between vaccines used to prevent future diseases compared to vaccines sent in response to emergency disease epidemics.

GAVI maintains stocks of vaccines so that, during a sudden epidemic of diseases, poor countries can quickly access vaccines. The group says it has sent tens of millions of doses of its world cholera stock, sent MPOX vaccines to Sierra Leone and Kenya and made yellow fever vaccines available to Colombia during a recent epidemic.

In addition to protecting countries that receive vaccines, this is part of the prevention of pandemics that cross borders.

Nineteen countries financed by the Alliance have been “graduates” of GAVI funding since 2016 and are now able to pay vaccines thanks to their own national budgets. The alliance indicates that its objective is: “all countries to end up reaching this stage – and for Gavi falls into bankruptcy”.

GAVI CEO, Dr. Sania Nishtar, said: “Since 2000, we have helped reduce infant mortality in under five and today we are able to save even more lives when we unfold the protections against malaria and cervical cancer.

“These are progress that we simply cannot allow ourselves to lose: the life of 500 million children depends on it.”

This part was produced as part of the independent Rethink the world aid series