The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Wednesday that the reduction of funding by the United States will have a “devastating impact” on the fight against tuberculosis. This step will threaten millions of lives.
WHO claims that the global efforts to combat the saddest infectious disease in the world has saved more than 79 million people over the past 20 years. Only last year, approximately 3.65 million deaths averted.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has introduced a “sharp reduction in financing” in most US spending to foreign aid after his return to the White House, as a result of the WHO that “hard success will be abolished, which is seriously threatened by millions of people – especially the most vulnerable”.
On the first day of the Presidential Office, Trump signed a regulation in which he demanded the freezing of all USA foreign aid for 90 days so that his government had time to examine the expenses abroad. AFP notes that Trump has essentially destroyed the US agency for international development (USAID), the main organization to distribute the US humanitarian aid.
On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court dismissed the application of the US administration for freezing approximately two billion dollars to be paid by USAID suppliers for the work already done.
The WHO claims that Washington has so far provided approximately a quarter of all funds of international donors intended for the treatment of tuberculosis, which is approximately $ 200 to $ 250 million a year.
In the meantime, USAID, which was the third largest provider of funding for tuberculosis research in the world, has stopped all funded studies, “seriously disrupting the progress of research and innovation in tuberculosis”, the WHO warned.
“These cuts threaten 18 countries with the highest incidence of tuberculosis, which depended on 89 percent of the expected financing of care for tuberculosis patients by the US,” the WHO said.
The cuts have hit Africa the most, followed by Southeast Asia and Western Pacific, writes AFP.
