Last week, the United States announced that it was cutting all funding to Gavi, the global vaccine alliance that provides most immunizations in low-income or developing countries.   

It is estimated that global immunization efforts have saved 154 million lives over the past 50 years. That’s 6 lives every minute of every year. Most of the lives saved—101 million—were infants. 

In regions where children are exposed to contaminated water or lack access to nutritious food, immunizations are even more vital for survival.  

According to a study published in BMC Public Health Journal in 2020, “Children in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly East Africa, are more than 15 times more likely than children in high-income countries to die before the age of 5. More than half of these deaths are preventable or can be handled with simple, affordable interventions, including immunization, proper nutrition, clean water, and food.” 

Gavi vaccinates more than half of the world’s children. Thomas Bollyky, Director of the Global Health Program at the Council of Foreign Relations told NPR that when Gavi was founded in 2000, there were 43 countries where at least 1 out of 10 children died before age 5 from infectious diseases. Today, there are only 5 such countries—Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Somalia “[and] Gavi is a big part of the reason why,” Bollyky told NPR. 

In total, Gavi estimates that its vaccine program prevented more than 18.8 million deaths between 2000 and 2023.

However, over the last decade (and particularly during the Covid pandemic) global immunization rates have stalled and/or declined leaving millions of people, especially children, vulnerable to highly contagious and often lethal diseases.  

In 2025 alone, at least 17 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa have experienced multiple public health emergencies, the majority of which are outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio, measles, and diphtheria.  

The U.S. withdrawal of funding may make these outbreaks more severe and increase the likelihood that these diseases spread around the world, making international humanitarian organizations like Medical Teams even more crucial for global health.   

In an interview with NPR, Dr. William Moss, who leads the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said that while we don’t know when we will see the impact of these cuts, he has no doubt there will be an impact.  

“What is almost certain is that we will see more frequent and larger measles outbreaks globally but also a resurgence of many other vaccine-preventable diseases, such as whooping cough and rotavirus diarrhea—both of which can be fatal,” he said. “We would also see delays or disruptions to the introduction of new, life-saving vaccines in the communities most in need.” 

This speaks to another unique aspect of this moment. Just two months ago in April, 2025, brand new malaria vaccines were introduced across Africa with the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives every year and address the world’s most severe public health risk. This cut in funding threatens to pull access to these vaccines for millions of people, increasing their chances of severe illness or death. 

As an organization focused on delivering life-saving care in challenging areas, Medical Teams administers hundreds of thousands of vaccines every year. We’re proud to say that in 2024, we vaccinated 90% of the children in the refugee camps where we serve, protecting them from diseases that are potentially life-threatening.  

While we wait to see the effects of this new shift in policy over the coming months, we will continue to show up every day to serve the communities where we work and provide the highest-quality medical care we can. 

And when the impact becomes clear, we’ll just keep showing up.  

Because (as we’ve said before) while policies change, our resolve to love like Jesus never will.