With only a few days in office, President Donald Trump has proposed $ 27.4 billion in brutal budget cuts – including the return of $ 5.1 billion from global public health amid a raging pandemic. Of the proposed health cuts, $ 4 billion would be cut by a vaccine alliance that plays a key role in distributing COVID-19 vaccines to low-income countries.
The proposed cuts are part of a recession request, which has no chance of being passed by Congress, as Politico reports. The proposed cuts, particularly the vaccine alliance, are likely to offend the global public health community, which continues to fight the out-of-control pandemic.
Worldwide, the total number of COVID-19 cases exceeds 93 million and deaths approach 2 million. In the U.S. alone, the seven-day average daily new cases are more than 235,000, with 129,000 people currently hospitalized. About 4,000 people die every day for the past three days, bringing the U.S. death toll to about 380,000.
In May, Trump announced that he would end our relationship with the World Health Organization, to the indignation of health experts worldwide. In September, the Trump administration said it would not participate in a WHO effort, called COVAX, to develop and distribute COVID-19 vaccines internationally, even to low-income countries. The move drew a fresh round of criticism from public health experts, who called it ‘short-sighted’ and ‘self-destructive’.
At the time, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven emphasized the need to be involved in global vaccination efforts, saying: ‘Equal access to a COVID-19 vaccine is the key to beating the virus and paving the way for recovery from the pandemic. .. It can not be a race with a few winners, and the COVAX facility is an important part of the solution – to ensure that all countries can benefit from access to the largest portfolio of candidates in the world and a fair and equitable distribution of vaccine doses. “
Nearly 100 other high-income countries have entered into COVAX, including China, filling the ‘leadership vacuum’ left behind by the Trump administration.
The move was also ‘self-evident’ because the US is already funding one of the most important organizers of COVAX, namely Gavi, the vaccine alliance.
Gavi’s funding is exactly what the Trump administration now wants to cut as it walks out the door. In the recession request, the government justified the cut with vaccine nationalism and wrote:
The $ 4 billion funding identified as an emergency requirement would provide U.S. funds to support international vaccination efforts before the clear U.S. policy of vaccinating endangered populations in the United States before supporting international vaccination efforts.
As Politico notes, however, Congress has budgeted for both local and international vaccination, and Gavi funding is not prioritized as local funding.