US aid pause comes amid multiple disease outbreaks in Africa

Ebola in Uganda. Marburg in Tanzania. Cholera in Angola. War in Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that escalated the risk of multiple disease outbreaks – and then the United States decision to halt foreign aid for 90 days and order grantees to stop all work.

“This is not the kind of week we like,” Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) told a media briefing on Thursday.

“I was shaking, to be honest with you, when there was this US pause regarding the [Marburg] response in Tanzania,” Kaseya admitted. “And if we talk about mpox, we have a pledge of $500 million from the US. We got around 60% from what the US committed, and we are waiting for this 40%.”

However, Kaseya expressed gratitude that the US had exempted “life-saving humanitarian assistance” from the 90-day pause. The US State Department has defined humanitarian assistance as “core to life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance”.

Africa CDC is waiting to engage with the US about its financial assistance once the appointment of the US Secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS) is finalised and the head of the US CDC is appointed. Trump’s HHS pick, Robert F Kennedy Jr is currently in Senate confirmation hearings.

Read the full story at Health Policy Watch.

SEE ALSO:

• The Conversation: WHO in Africa: three ways the continent stands to lose from Trump’s decision to pull out