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The international alliance to send life-saving vaccines to poorer countries has never had a wider range of jabs at its disposal but is battling funding constraints among its rich nation donors, its chief executive has warned.

Financial demands on Gavi’s main funders, from reviving sluggish economies to conflicts and climate change, was leading them to explore greater use of “vaccine bonds” to spread payments over multiple years, Sania Nishtar said.

Nishtar’s comments highlight a wider global public health dilemma ahead of talks at the UN General Assembly next week, as money pressures threaten to hamper delivery of vital supplies to countries most in need. Gavi’s work extends from inoculations for common diseases to responses to emergencies such as the mpox epidemic centred on the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Now we have the widest portfolio of vaccines available to us,” Nishtar said in an interview. “The irony is that this is also a time when the donors are fiscally constrained and there are many other competing priorities.”

Gavi has raised about $2.4bn of the $9bn minimum it is seeking from donors for its next five-year funding cycle starting in 2026, said Nishtar, who took office earlier this year. She was “cautiously optimistic” about hitting the target but conscious of the “difficult environment” financially, which is why Gavi is suggesting countries make greater use of an existing alternative funding mechanism.

It has pitched to prospective donors in western and Gulf countries to give as much as two-thirds of their funding in some cases via vaccine bonds, which are backed by legally binding sovereign commitments. These allow Gavi to raise money on international markets to fund routine immunisation programmes or respond quickly to crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It’s a time-tested model. And we hope to be increasing its share in our replenishment,” said Nishtar, a Pakistani cardiologist and public health expert who has served as a senator and government minister.

The reports of funding pressures echo remarks by other prominent figures on global public health, who point to spending commitments such as supporting Ukraine against Russia’s full-scale invasion. Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, has warned that a reluctance among rich countries to donate threatened advances in child health.

Gavi has helped countries with the routine immunisation of more than 1bn children since it was established in 2000, as well as co-ordinating vaccines for other campaigns and crises such as Covid. The jabs target a range of threats, including measles, meningitis A and the human papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer.

Gavi strived to avoid “a paternalistic relationship with countries of the south”, Nishtar said. Its co-financing policy means nations contribute some of the costs of vaccine procurement, while 19 have already shifted to fully funding their immunisation programmes including Angola, India and Moldova. Donors liked the model and felt it gave them value for money as well as improving public health, she said.

“Here is something that gives them results in human terms — and in economic terms gives them value for money.”

Gavi has set up a rapid response fund for health emergencies after the Covid pandemic showed the damage caused by inequities in vaccine supply. It used this facility this week to secure 500,000 mpox jab doses for delivery this year.

Gavi has also set up a $1.2bn financing instrument to promote vaccine manufacturing in Africa by making incentive payments to help offset high initial production costs. Nishtar said she was also pushing for greater use of mobile payments for health workers and artificial intelligence-based analysis to detect “difficult pockets” of countries where children remained under-immunised.

“[A] big picture change is the focus on underprivileged communities, but bringing all modern levers at play to deliver,” she said.

An explosion caused by a gas leak at a coal mine in eastern Iran has killed at least 51 people, state media said on Sunday.

More than 20 others were injured after the blast in South Khorasan province.

It is reported to have been caused by a methane gas explosion in two blocks of the mine in Tabas, 540 km (335 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran.

The explosion occurred at 21:00 local time (17:30 GMT) on Saturday, state media said.

South Khorasan’s governor Javad Ghenaatzadeh said there were 69 workers in the blocks at the time of the explosion.

According to the AP news agency, he said: “There was an explosion and unfortunately 69 people were working in the B and C blocks of Madanjoo mine.

“In block C there were 22 people and in block B there were 47 people.”

It remains unclear how many people are still alive and trapped inside the mine.

State media has now revised its earlier toll of 30 dead.

“The number of dead workers increased to 51 and the number of injured increased to 20,” the official IRNA news agency reported.

Citing the head of Iran’s Red Crescent, state TV said earlier on Sunday that 24 people were missing.

According to Reuters news agency, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed condolences to the victims’ families.

“I spoke with ministers and we will do our best to follow up,” Pezeshkian said in televised comments.

The Tabas mine covers an area of more than 30,000 square kilometres (nearly 11,600 square miles) and holds mass reserves of coking and thermal coal, according to IRNA.

It is “considered the richest and largest coal area in Iran,” IRNA said.

Local prosecutor Ali Nesaei was quoted by state media as saying “gas accumulation in the mine” has made search operations difficult.

“Currently, the priority is to provide aid to the injured and pull people from under the rubble,” Nesaei said.

He added that “the negligence and fault of the relevant agents will be dealt with” at a later date.

Last year, an explosion at a coal mine in the northern city of Damghan killed six people, also likely the result of methane leak according to local media.

In May 2021, two miners died in a collapse at the same site, local media reported at the time.

A blast in 2017 killed 43 miners in Azad Shahr city in northern Iran, triggering anger towards Iranian authorities.

ANGELA Rayner was left squirming over Labour’s freebie row today – insisting that all MPs accept goodies from donors. 

The Deputy PM said receiving gifts and hospitality has been a “feature of our politics for a very long time” as she took a battering over the saga.

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She also tried to defuse growing concerns about Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray, who she claimed was being “demonised” as part of a smear campaign.

The start of Labour’s party conference in Liverpool has been overshadowed by storms over Cabinet Ministers’ haul of freebies, as well as hostile briefings against Ms Gray.

In a grilling on the BBC, Ms Rayner defended the fledgling administration from the sleaze claims that have engulfed Downing Street within the first few months.

She said: “I get that people are frustrated, in particular the circumstances that we’re in, but donations for gifts and hospitality and monetary donations have been a feature of our politics for a very long time.

“People can look it up and see what people have had donations for, and the transparency is really important. I get that people are angry, I get that people are upset.”

Sir Keir and his wife Lady Victoria have accepted thousands of pounds worth of glasses and garments from multi-millionaire peer Lord Alli. 

Ms Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have also taken donations for clothes. All four have since vowed never to accept such gifts again following the backlash.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson today also insisted that her 40th birthday bash – paid for by Lord Alli – was held in a “work context”.

The Deputy PM was today also forced to deny she breached Commons rules by staying in a $2.5million luxury New York apartment owned by Lord Alli.

Ms Rayner declared on the parliamentary register of interests that she was lent the home for a personal holiday between December 29 and January 2 last year. 

But she didn’t disclose that her on-again-off-again boyfriend Sam Tarry, a former Labour MP, also joined her on the deluxe trip.

She insisted that the ex-MP was not part of her holiday but just happened to be in New York at the same time and so they met up. 

Ms Rayner told the BBC: “It was a personal holiday and I think I followed the rules. In fact I went above that and I wanted to do that to be transparent about the connection I had in the use of that apartment.”

The Deputy PM added: “I don’t believe I broke any rules. I had the use of the apartment and I disclosed that I had the use of that apartment.

“If anything I was overly transparent because I thought it was important that despite it being a personal holiday, because that person as a friend had already donated to me in the past for my deputy leadership.”

Ms Rayner rejected reports Sir Keir’s chief of staff Ms Gray is sowing division at the heart of No10.

She defended the former partygate enforcer, insisting she is being “demonised” through the press.

Asked if she will still be in place by Christmas, Ms Rayner replied: “I think so, absolutely.”

She went on: “She has been doing an incredible job, and she’s got a huge amount of respect amongst the Cabinet. 

“It angers me as someone who has been a trade union rep in the past and who wants to bring workers’ rights that somehow it’s okay to, you know, demonise workers in their workplace through the press and the media.”

Disclosures that Ms Gray was given a pay rise after the election, while other political advisers faced salary cuts, have sparked a row within Government.

The BBC last week reported Ms Gray was paid about £3,000 more than the PM’s salary of £166,786.

That is more than any Cabinet Minister is paid, while many of Labour’s newly recruited special advisers have joined a union over concerns about their pay.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Israel and Hizbollah ratcheted up their exchanges of fire on Sunday, with Israeli jets mounting some of the heaviest bombing raids in Lebanon since the start of the fighting last year, and the militant group firing rockets towards the city of Haifa.

The salvos capped a week of spiralling cross-border tensions that have fuelled fears that the hostilities between Israel and the Lebanese militant group could be on the verge of erupting into a full-blown war.

The Israeli military said Hizbollah had launched about 115 projectiles early on Sunday, with rockets aimed deeper into Israel than in previous salvos. While most were intercepted, Kiryat Bialik and Tsur Shalom in Haifa’s suburbs, and other areas in the country’s north, sustained hits.

Hizbollah said the barrages were in retaliation for “repeated” Israeli attacks, as well as an “initial” response to mass detonations of its communications devices earlier this week that killed 37 people and injured more than 3,000 in multiple locations across Lebanon.

Hizbollah has blamed the explosions on Israel, which has not directly commented.

Israeli paramedics said they had treated several people for shrapnel injuries from Hizbollah’s barrage, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

But in a sign that Israel was bracing for a further escalation, authorities limited gatherings in the north of the country. They also told schools to close and hospitals to operate from facilities with protection against rocket fire.

As tensions boiled across the region, Israel said it had shot down a drone fired from the east — which was claimed by militants in Iraq who said they had also targeted Israel with cruise missiles — and launched a raid in the Palestinian city of Ramallah to close down the local Al Jazeera office. Israel has accused the media group of being a mouthpiece for militants. Al Jazeera has rejected the claims.

Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for Israel’s military, accused Hizbollah of “targeting civilians” in its latest round of strikes, and the military said it would continue to strike to degrade the Lebanese group’s capabilities.

The Israeli military earlier on Sunday said it had hit about 290 targets in Lebanon in the preceding 24 hours, destroying thousands of rocket launcher barrels and other infrastructure belonging to Hizbollah.

Hizbollah and Israeli forces have been exchanging cross-border fire since the Iran-backed militant group launched rockets at Israel the day after Hamas’s October 7 attack on the Jewish state.

But in the last week, the hostilities have escalated dramatically. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the attack on Hizbollah’s pagers and other communications devices sent shockwaves through Lebanon.

Then, on Friday, an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Ibrahim Aqil and other senior commanders in Hizbollah’s elite Radwan force, in arguably the most damaging blow Israel has struck against the militant group since it was founded in the 1980s.

Lebanese authorities said on Sunday that the death toll from the strike, which destroyed a residential building in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, had risen to 45, including at least 10 civilians, among them three children.

This week’s escalation came after Israel said it was entering a “new phase” of its almost year-long conflict with Hizbollah, which has until now been largely contained to the Israeli-Lebanese border region.

Jeanine Hennis, the UN’s special co-ordinator for Lebanon, warned that the exchanges had brought the region to “the brink of an imminent catastrophe”, and called for both sides to de-escalate.

“It cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer,” she wrote on X.

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