Berliner Boersenzeitung - USAID cuts rip through African health care systems

EUR -
AED 4.133496
AFN 78.993721
ALL 98.292187
AMD 437.813036
ANG 2.028226
AOA 1031.956036
ARS 1251.004261
AUD 1.754269
AWG 2.025649
AZN 1.917581
BAM 1.956366
BBD 2.27052
BDT 136.679539
BGN 1.956237
BHD 0.423966
BIF 3345.334088
BMD 1.125361
BND 1.459884
BOB 7.77318
BRL 6.356604
BSD 1.124511
BTN 95.971371
BWP 15.247788
BYN 3.681332
BYR 22057.066742
BZD 2.25882
CAD 1.569147
CDF 3232.035901
CHF 0.936355
CLF 0.027415
CLP 1052.026377
CNY 8.144577
CNH 8.147858
COP 4768.715323
CRC 570.754632
CUC 1.125361
CUP 29.822055
CVE 110.567117
CZK 24.960277
DJF 200.244083
DKK 7.463508
DOP 66.164741
DZD 149.7051
EGP 56.934474
ERN 16.880408
ETB 150.878807
FJD 2.553673
FKP 0.845912
GBP 0.846231
GEL 3.08916
GGP 0.845912
GHS 14.79893
GIP 0.845912
GMD 80.467613
GNF 9738.225934
GTQ 8.652503
GYD 236.030939
HKD 8.754011
HNL 29.213678
HRK 7.537782
HTG 146.858327
HUF 404.297467
IDR 18625.223483
ILS 3.986174
IMP 0.845912
INR 96.120252
IQD 1474.222318
IRR 47377.679471
ISK 146.983775
JEP 0.845912
JMD 178.745792
JOD 0.798223
JPY 163.66573
KES 145.738469
KGS 98.413212
KHR 4501.642176
KMF 491.224149
KPW 1012.824495
KRW 1571.172561
KWD 0.345153
KYD 0.937442
KZT 580.552785
LAK 24319.041837
LBP 100832.305501
LKR 336.104243
LRD 224.902123
LSL 20.538259
LTL 3.322898
LVL 0.68072
LYD 6.16251
MAD 10.412403
MDL 19.279978
MGA 5059.597826
MKD 61.530109
MMK 2362.956847
MNT 4021.804562
MOP 9.012527
MRU 44.800439
MUR 51.440657
MVR 17.33476
MWK 1949.845012
MXN 21.881065
MYR 4.835718
MZN 71.914736
NAD 20.538254
NGN 1808.578614
NIO 41.376711
NOK 11.670496
NPR 153.553794
NZD 1.904647
OMR 0.433006
PAB 1.124915
PEN 4.097481
PGK 4.667629
PHP 62.307881
PKR 316.686827
PLN 4.233571
PYG 8990.285386
QAR 4.097157
RON 5.12017
RSD 117.243917
RUB 92.791924
RWF 1616.471511
SAR 4.221084
SBD 9.389874
SCR 15.97473
SDG 675.783146
SEK 10.925567
SGD 1.460835
SHP 0.884357
SLE 25.60237
SLL 23598.229739
SOS 642.648918
SRD 41.30355
STD 23292.691251
SVC 9.842847
SYP 14631.774637
SZL 20.443375
THB 37.092299
TJS 11.642765
TMT 3.950016
TND 3.394369
TOP 2.635711
TRY 43.585781
TTD 7.642143
TWD 34.05499
TZS 3033.358886
UAH 46.714787
UGX 4117.191035
USD 1.125361
UYU 47.023603
UZS 14500.271038
VES 104.337792
VND 29235.178998
VUV 136.172441
WST 3.126842
XAF 655.904864
XAG 0.034382
XAU 0.000338
XCD 3.041344
XDR 0.815735
XOF 655.904864
XPF 119.331742
YER 275.094795
ZAR 20.47858
ZMK 10129.599402
ZMW 29.602647
ZWL 362.365637
  • JRI

    0.0300

    12.98

    +0.23%

  • BCE

    0.4800

    22.71

    +2.11%

  • AZN

    0.2700

    67.57

    +0.4%

  • GSK

    -0.2500

    36.62

    -0.68%

  • BCC

    -0.9600

    88.62

    -1.08%

  • SCS

    -0.0200

    10.46

    -0.19%

  • BTI

    -1.6600

    41.64

    -3.99%

  • NGG

    0.5100

    70.69

    +0.72%

  • RIO

    0.8000

    59.98

    +1.33%

  • CMSC

    -0.0500

    22.06

    -0.23%

  • RBGPF

    65.2700

    65.27

    +100%

  • CMSD

    0.0100

    22.34

    +0.04%

  • BP

    1.1800

    29.77

    +3.96%

  • RELX

    0.3486

    53.85

    +0.65%

  • VOD

    0.0500

    9.3

    +0.54%

  • RYCEF

    0.0500

    10.55

    +0.47%

USAID cuts rip through African health care systems
USAID cuts rip through African health care systems / Photo: EMMANUEL AREWA - AFP/File

USAID cuts rip through African health care systems

As clouds gather and humidity rises across west Africa, whose annual rains bring an uptick of deadly, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, Musa Adamu Ibrahim, a nurse, is sitting at home, unemployed.

Text size:

In Nigeria -- home to 30 percent of the world's annual 600,000 malaria deaths -- clinics that once served 300 people a day in the conflict-hit Borno state have abruptly shut down, Ibrahim and other laid-off workers told AFP, following the withdrawal of American funding by President Donald Trump.

"The clinics have been closed and (there are) no more free drugs or mosquito nets," said Ibrahim.

The sudden dismantling of USAID -- the country's main foreign development arm -- is unravelling health care systems across Africa that were built from a complicated web of national health ministries, the private sector, nonprofits and foreign aid.

As the effects of the cuts compound, the resulting damage -- and deaths -- are unlikely to end anytime soon: malaria cases will peak around the end of the rainy season, while threatened American cuts to global vaccine funding would likely be felt later in the year.

In the meantime, the ripple effects continue to spread: alongside laid-off workers, malnutrition clinics have shuttered doors in Nigeria.

Rattled supply chains mean drugs are at risk of being stuck in warehouses in Mali. Children are walking miles to reach care in South Sudan for cholera care and dying along the way, and refugee camps in Kenya are facing medicine shortages.

"People with resources will be able to go and get drugs... but the poorest of the poor, out in remote areas of Nigeria and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, they're the ones who will be cut off," said Lawrence Barat, a former senior technical advisor for the US President's Malaria Initiative (PMI).

"They're the ones whose children will die."

- Malaria forecasts upended -

During malaria's seasonal peak, Ibrahim once saw clinics he worked at treat 300 patients a week. Fatima Kunduli, another laid-off aid worker in Borno, said her clinic was seeing 60 children per day for malnutrition and malaria care before it shut down.

As downpours progressively cascade across west Africa -- Nigeria's have just started, while Senegal's rains won't arrive until May -- countries that have made in some cases significant progress in stamping out malaria in recent decades will now be doing so without a major financial backer.

Forecasts developed by ministries of health across the continent to plan for the rainy season have deep holes blown in them, said Saschveen Singh, an infectious disease specialist with Doctors Without Borders in France.

The complex mix of funding sources in each nation -- from local governments to internationalnonprofits -- means US programmes worked differently in every country.

In Mali, seasonal malaria chemoprevention drugs given to young children won't have an issue coming into the country -- but American funds were crucial for coordinating their distribution, Singh told AFP.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the USAID-supported PMI was the primary malaria drug and test provider to government health facilities in nine provinces.

"Suddenly, they'll just not have drugs, and it's going to be very difficult for other actors to step in," said Singh, adding her co-workers are "scrambling" to map out where gaps may arise.

- Cholera treatment scaled back -

In South Sudan, USAID-funded clinics have closed amid a cholera outbreak. Children are walking hours to the next closest treatment centre, with at least five dying along the way in the country's eastern Jonglei state, British charity Save the Children reported earlier this month.

In neighbouring Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp, which hosts more than 300,000 people, protests broke out in March when it was announced rations would be lowered, and doctors are running out of medicine.

"All the clinics around, you can get paracetamol. But all other drugs, no," one camp elder, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP during a recent visit.

At Kinkole General Hospital, in Kinshasa, doctors were recently treating 23 mpox patients isolated in tents free of charge thanks to American support. But workers have no idea if that funding will continue, despite an outbreak that has infected 16,000 and killed 1,600.

"We're thinking a disaster is coming," said Yvonne Walo, an epidemiologist at the centre.

- Potential vaccine funding gap -

The hits to health care systems are set to keep coming.

Washington is reportedly considering pulling back its funding to Gavi, the organisation that procures vaccinations for the world's poorest countries.

Cuts would be almost guaranteed, with Gavi chief executive Sania Nishtar telling AFP that "this is too big a hole to be filled."

If confirmed, John Johnson, a vaccination and epidemic response advisor with Doctors Without Borders, expects programmes to start coming under strain later this year.

In Borno, whose governor recently warned of a resurgence of the Boko Haram jihadist group, Kunduli, the laid-off aid worker, said even with US funding the work was "overwhelming."

Now, "I could only imagine."

(T.Burkhard--BBZ)