PARIS: The United States cutting funding to Gavi, an organisation that provides vaccines to the world`s poorest countries, could result in more than a million deaths and will endanger lives everywhere, the group`s CEO warned on Thursday.

The news that Washington is planning to end funding for Gavi, first reported in the New York Times, comes as the two-month-old administration of President Donald Trump aggressively slashes foreign aid.

The decision was included in a 281page spreadsheet that the severely downsised United States Agency for International Development sent toCongress on Monday night.

Gavi`s chief executive Sania Nishtar said the alliance had `not received a termination notice from the US government`. The alliance was `engaging with the White House and Congress with a view to securing $300 million approved by Congress for our 2025 activities and longer-term funding`, Nishtar said.

`A cut in Gavi`s funding from the US would have a disastrous impact on global health security, potentially resulting in over a million deaths from preventable diseases and endangering lives everywhere from dangerous disease outbreaks,she said.

Health experts and organisations have warned that cutting Gavi`s funding would ultimately cost the world more money and set back a quarter-century of progress in the fight against many deadly diseases.

Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology at Brown University in the United States, said the `mindbogglingly short-sighted proposal` would have `devastating consequences for the health of children everywhere`.

`US support for Gavi`s vaccination efforts is not charity it`s a cost-effective investment to preventdeadly and costly outbreaks that can come here,` she said.

`Cruel` Gavi says it helps vaccinate more than half the world`s children against infectious diseases including Covid-19, Ebola, malaria, rabies, polio, cholera, tuberculosis (TB), typhoid and yellow fever.

The United States currently provides around a quarter of the budget of Gavi, a public-private partnership headquartered in Geneva.

David Elliman, a child health researcher at University College London, said cutting funding `isnot only cruel, but is not in the interests of anyone`.

`If diseases such as measles and TB increase anywhere in the world, it is a hazard to us all,` he told the Science Media Centre, adding that measles was already rising in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

In the face of the Trump administration`s sweeping aid cuts, `institutions are reluctant to speak out in case they are targeted and individuals are self-censoring to protect themselves,` said Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group.

`We must wake up to the moral case for supporting the remarkableglobal health efforts that help the poor of the world, but also remember that it is in our own interest,` he added. `As the Covid-19 pandemic reminds us, infectious diseases cross borders and put all of us at risk.

`We will regret this` Several health researchers also said the cuts would be a poor return on investment. For every $1 spent on vaccinations in developing countries where Gavi operates, $21 will be saved this decade in `health care costs, lost wages and lost productivity from illness and death`, the vaccine group estimates.-AFP