US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said that Washington would re-engage with Gavi, the global vaccine organisation, amid an Ebola outbreak in several African countries.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, brings together government and private donors to help developing countries acquire immunisations for key diseases at affordable prices.
Last year, the United States pulled support worth $1.58 billion, with its vaccine-sceptic health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, claiming without evidence that there were safety concerns.
On Tuesday, Rubio, speaking during a congressional hearing, said, “the administration had been supportive in pushing for Kennedy’s reforms.”
“We’ve now reached the stage where the State Department will become more engaged in making sure we can reach an outcome, because we have to get to an outcome here,” he told lawmakers.
Gavi says it helps vaccinate more than half the world’s children against infectious diseases, including Covid-19, Ebola, malaria, rabies, polio, cholera, tuberculosis, typhoid and yellow fever.
“We are very encouraged by Secretary Rubio’s remarks that the US intends to re-engage on the issue of funding Gavi. Unlocking the funds that Congress has appropriated to Gavi would enable us to keep the world safe from infectious disease threats,” the organisation's head, Sania Nishtar, said in a statement to AFP.
“The work we have initiated with our partners to speed up and scale up the manufacture of future Bundibugyo vaccines underlines the importancthis initiative this,” she added.
Gavi had previously announced it would make up to $50 million available for Bundibugyo vaccine efforts, which developers are working to accelerate as the rare strain of Ebola drives a deadly outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
