Vaccines in Flux and Africa Health Finance Amid Public Debt
June 27, 2025
Editors' Note
On Wednesday, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance culminated its latest replenishment cycle with a pledging summit in Brussels. The summit's outcome reflects an unsteady moment in global vaccination and the diseases it helps prevent.
Gavi secured $9 billion to support its strategic plans for the next five years, falling $2.9 billion short of its intended goal. That shortfall was partially due to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who refused U.S. donations, making allegations over vaccine safety, which Gavi rebutted. The funding gap arrives as a new study in the Lancet shows vaccination progress has stalled or reversed in many countries since 2010.
The United States has long been one of Gavi's largest financial supporters, but federal officials are reconsidering the U.S. stance on immunization policy. Kennedy's announcement arrived the same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened its independent vaccine advisory committee, which Kennedy recently purged, alleging its members withheld conflicts of interest (COI).
For this week's edition, former U.S. CDC Director Tom Frieden and medical student Yuexuan Chen refute those claims by examining the COI disclosures made by 30 current and former vaccine advisory committee members between 2000 and 2024. They write that recent vaccine policy changes and the clean sweep of CDC vaccine advisors threaten "to destroy the health protection network the United States has worked decades to build." On Thursday, the new advisors concluded their latest session by rescinding recommendations for some flu vaccines.
Next, Girija Sankar, head of neglected tropical diseases at Christian Blind Mission, reflects on her 24-year career in global health by confronting the popular belief that "our job is to work ourselves out of a job." She questions what that expression conveys about power, inequity, and purpose in global health.
The newsletter concludes as Zimbabwe Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube opines on how Africa can grow health investments amid high public debt and a global drop in foreign aid.
