Health authorities draw attention to an imminent consequence of the Trump administration Evision of the American agency for international development: The risk of a global increase in cases of tuberculosis and deaths.
The World Health Organization has warned this week that radical financing reductions could endanger millions of lives, as many countries depend on foreign aid for prevention, tests and treatments for tuberculosis.
“Without immediate action, the hard -won progress in the fight against tuberculosis is in danger,” said Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the World WHO program on TB and pulmonary health, said in a press release Wednesday.
Globally, tuberculosis is responsible for most deaths of any infectious disease. Around 1.25 million people died from bacterial infection in 2023The latest data available, and new cases have reached a summit of all time that year, with around 8.2 million people diagnosedAccording to the WHO.
USAID until recently, USAID has provided approximately a quarter of the international donor funding for tuberculosis services in other countries – up to $ 250 million per year, according to WHO. The agency has operated tuberculosis programs in 24 countries.
WHO said that due to American financing reductions, drug supply chains in other countries “decompose”, laboratory services are “seriously disturbed” and “collapse” surveillance systems, which makes it difficult to identify, monitor and treat cases of tuberculosis. Some research trials have also been interrupted.
This has incapable of certain national tuberculosis programs, with the WHO warning devastating impacts in 18 countries with the largest burden of the disease, many of which are in Africa.
In Uganda, the decline in the financing of the USAID made it difficult to pay for community health workers, leading to the sub-system, said Dr. Luke Davis, clinical epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health. These workers play an essential role in the notification of people who test positive for tuberculosis, making them treatment and detecting their close contacts for infection.
“Patients can get a diagnosis of tuberculosis after leaving the clinic because they are waiting for the results, and they can be at home with tuberculosis and not know that they have tuberculosis. There are literally not the resources to go out and reach these people, “he said. “People die because they have a disease that has not been diagnosed, has not been treated, has not been avoided.”
Since January 24, USAID finance has been stopping around 3,400 additional tuberculosis and 6,000 additional infections may have resulted in around 3,400 additional deaths A project modeling the impact of cuts. The model is coordinated by the TB Partnership stop, a United Nations that aims to eliminate tuberculosis as a public health problem.
Any increase in the spread of the disease could affect the United States, as it would allow more people who live or travel abroad to bring the disease. Already, cases of tuberculosis in the United States getting up: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Recorded more than 9,600 cases in 2023An increase of almost 16% compared to the previous year and an increase of 9% compared to prepondemic levels in 2019.
A persistent epidemic in Kansas has led to 68 active cases since January 2024.
“What’s going on when we travel abroad?” I have known soldiers and women who come back with multidusive tuberculosis after a service lap. I have known bankers, people from Silicon Valley who work abroad, come back with the disease, “said Dr. Kenneth Castro, world health professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
“The problem with all these infectious diseases is that they do not know borders, and our efforts should not stop at the border either,” he said.
A resurgence of tuberculosis in the United States from 1985 to 1992 was attributed, in part, to A decrease in tuberculosis control programs And Growing world cases.
The White House did not provide a comment in time for the publication.
People with active tuberculosis usually develop bad coughs and chest pain. They can spit blood and mucus and have trouble breathing. Laisée untreated, bacterial infection can damage the lungs and spread to other parts of their body, such as the brain, the kidneys and the spine. It can be fatal for Up to two thirds of people with active cases which are not treated properly, according to the WHO.
But the treatment is not rapid: patients with tuberculosis must generally take antibiotics for six months, and stop in the middle can lead a person to become antibiotic resistant, then distribute this strain of tuberculosis resistant to the drug to others.
Until the recent cut, USAID had played a decisive role in monitoring surveillance to identify new cases of tuberculosis, improve supply chains to bring medication to sick patients and invest in clinical trials for new therapies and diagnostic tests. In communities that lacked radiologists to read X -rays, USAID also funded portable X -ray systems that use artificial intelligence to make diagnostics.
In addition, the agency has helped countries providing drugs at lower costs, in part by funding the Global Drug Facility, a group that negotiates the prices of drugs with suppliers.
Many of these efforts stopped when the Trump administration has stripped the bone bone agency. After firing or leave entrepreneurs In January, administration Licensed 1,600 staff membersThen placed thousands of others on administrative leave last month. The State Department has carried out nearly 5,800 of the USAID foreign aid prices – more than 90% of the total – according to A filed trial by non -profit organizations and companies that receive funding from USAID. Prices have totaled $ 54 billion, According to the Associated Press.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued a derogation in January, allowing the humanitarian programs of the life of the USAID – in particular the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis – despite, despite, despite, despite, despite, despite, despite, despite A 90 -day freeze on foreign aid. But in A note to staff members last monthAn USAID official said almost all of the funding necessary to maintain these programs had been terminated.
The manager warned against “avoidable death, destabilization and threats to national security on a large scale”, was then placed on administrative leave after sending the memo.
USAID’s reduction in the workforce was one of the wider efforts to reduce federal spending by Elon Musk and the government’s ministry. Musk said on x Last month, he “fed Usaid in the wooden shredder” and that he and Trump agreed that the agency should be closed.
Until now, federal judges refused requests Since USAID staff and entrepreneurs To continue their work, while legal proceedings calling into question their layoffs. Wednesday, the Supreme Court said that the Trump administration had to pay USAID $ 2 billion entrepreneurs For the work already completed.
The WHO aims to reduce the cases of tuberculosis by 80% and the deaths by 90% by 2030. It was already ambitious, but it is even more out of sight now, said Dr. Priya Shete, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco.
USAID played an important role in obtaining tools and diagnostic treatments during the “last kilometer” to patients, said Shete. This included finding ways to transport drugs when the road conditions were poor and finance mobile clinics that offered X -rays and bacterial tests.
“The loss of resources to cross the finish line is what is really disturbing for some people, and will end up millions of lives potentially,” she said.
Experts fear that the disruption of clinical trials also hinders the development of treatments for drug resistant infections and new ways of detecting cases in children, which are often difficult to diagnose.
“Innovations are also going back to the United States,” said Davis.