The Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanum Gebrisos, warned Monday that the Donald Trump administration reduced surprisingly foreign aid could lead to the death of millions of people all over the world.
Gebrisos warned that stopping support for AIDS programs “may cancel the progress of 20 years, causing more than 10 million additional cases of AIDS and 3 million deaths related to AIDS, or three times the number of deaths compared to last year.”
“We ask the United States to reconsider its support for global health,” he told reporters.
Gebrisos cited other diseases such as examples such as malaria and tuberculosis to clarify the effect of the acute reduction of US aid for the health sector.
“We are now facing severe disturbances in the supply of malaria diagnosis, medicines, and mosquitoes treated with pesticides due to the delay of inventory, delaying delivery or deficiency in financing,” he said.
He added, “Over the past two decades, the United States has been the largest donor to combat malaria, and has helped prevent 2.2 billion estimated cases and 12.7 million deaths,” continuing, “If the disturbances continue, we may witness 15 million malaria and 107,000 deaths this year alone, which erases 15 years of progress.”
For tuberculosis, 27 countries in Africa and Asia face “tragic collapses” in the chains of prevention, care and control.
“Nine countries have reported to purchase in the purchase and in the supply of tuberculosis drugs, which threatens the lives of the injured,” he said.
Freezing US foreign aid
After returning to the White House last January, Trump has frozen all US foreign aid, including supporting the world’s 90 -day health care programs, with the aim of giving his administration time to review external spending, before working to stop financing many projects.
Trump has also ended the majority of the USA’s International Development Agency programs.
These steps have sparked widespread concern in international health and relief circles, especially since the United States was the largest donor and a large difference from other parties.
The Director of the Health Organization stressed that “the American administration has, of course, the right to decide what to support and to any extent”, but it remedies that “the United States also bears responsibility for ensuring that any direct funding from countries, in an organized and humanitarian manner, allows (countries) to find alternative sources of financing.”
“We call on the United States to reconsider its support for global health, which saves lives all over the world and also makes the United States safer by preventing the spread of epidemics at the international level,” he said.
He added, “If the United States decides not to resume direct financing for countries, we ask them to enter into a dialogue with the affected countries” to find more sustainable alternatives, without stopping, leading to loss of life. “
He also called on other donors to intensify their efforts.
He stressed that “the World Health Organization has long called on all countries to increase their health spending gradually, and this has become more important than ever.”