WHO warns on the possible tuberculosis due to USAID – NBC New York

The health authorities draw attention to a developing consequence of the Trump administration Removal of the US Agency for International Development: the risk of global growth in cases of tuberculosis and deaths.

The World Health Organization warned this week that great financing discounts could endanger millions of lives, as many countries depend on external aid to prevent, testing and treatment.

“Without immediate action, the progress gained in the fight against tuberculosis is in danger,” Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, the director of the Global Who for TB and long health, said in a statement Wednesday.

Globally, tuberculosis is responsible for most deaths of any infectious disease. Around 1.25 million people died due to bacterial infection in 2023The latest available data and new cases have reached a constant level in that year with approximately 8.2 million diagnosedAccording to WHO.

Until recently, USAID has provided about a quarter of the international financing of donors for tuberculosis services in other countries – up to $ 250 million annually, according to WHO. The agency has operated tuberculosis programs in 24 countries.

WHO said that due to US funding discounts, drug supply chains from other countries “break down”, laboratory services are “seriously disruption”, and surveillance systems “collapse”, which makes it difficult to identify, monitor and treat tuberculosis cases. Some research studies have been stopped.

This has incapacked some national tuberculosis programs, with WHO warning the devastating impact in 18 countries with the largest burden of the disease, many of them being in Africa.

In Uganda, the profitability of USAID funding has made it difficult to pay to community health workers, which leads to an insufficiency, said Dr. Luke Davis, a clinical epidemiologist at the Yale Public School. Such workers play a critical role in notifying people who test positive for tuberculosis, obtaining treatment and screening contacts for infection.

“Patients can receive a diagnosis of tuberculosis after they have left the clinic, because they are waiting for the results and can be at home with tuberculosis and I do not know that they have tuberculosis. There are literally resources to go out and reach those people, ”he said. “People die because they have a disease that was not diagnosed, they have not been treated, it has not been prevented.”

Starting January 24, the interruption of USAID funding would have led to about 3,400 additional tuberculosis deaths and 6,000 additional infections, according to A project that shapes the impact of discounts. The model is coordinated by Stop TB Partnership, an organization of the United Nations that aims to eliminate tuberculosis as a public health problem.

Any increase in the spread of the disease could affect the US because it would allow more people living or traveling abroad to bring the disease. Already, cases of tuberculosis in the US have grown: Centers for disease control and prevention registered more than 9,600 cases in 2023an increase of almost 16% compared to the previous year and an increase of 9% compared to the prepandemic levels in 2019.

A persistent outbreak in Kansas has led to 68 active cases in January 2024.

“What happens when we travel abroad? I know the services and women who return with multidrug resistant TBs after a service tour. I met about bankers, people from Silicon Valley who work abroad, come back with the disease, “said Dr. Kenneth Castro, a global health teacher at the Emory University Public Health School.

“The problem with all these infectious diseases is that I do not know borders or our efforts should stop at the border,” he said.

A resurrection of tuberculosis in the US from 1985 to 1992 was partly assigned to A decrease in tuberculosis control programs and Increased global cases.

The White House did not offer a timely comment for publication.

People with active tuberculosis usually develop bad cough and chest pain. They can cough blood and mucus and have difficulty breathing. Left untreated, bacterial infection can damage the lung and spread to other parts of their body, such as brain, kidneys and spine. Can be fatal for Up to two -thirds of people with active cases that are not treated properly, according to WHO.

But treatment is not a quick matter: patients with tuberculosis should usually take antibiotics for six months, and stopping in the middle can cause a person to become antibiotic resistant, then spread that drug resistant to others.

Until recent discounts, USAID was essential in supervision to identify new cases of tuberculosis, improve the supply chains to obtain medicines in sick patients and invest in clinical studies for new therapies and diagnostic tests. In communities that had no radiologists to read radiographs, USAID also funded portable X -ray systems that use artificial intelligence to make diagnoses.

In addition, the agency has helped the countries to get drugs at lower costs, partly by financing Global Drug facility, a group that negotiates drug prices with suppliers.

Many of these efforts stopped when the Trump administration undressed the agency to empty bones. After Firing or furloughing contractors In January, the administration fired 1,600 employeesThen he placed thousands on administrative leave last month. The State Department has reduced almost 5,800 of USAID’s external aid prizes – more than 90% of the total – according to a process by non -profit and companies receiving USAID funding. The prizes totaled $ 54 billion, According to Associated Press.

Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued a renunciation in January, allowing humanitarian life -saving programs – including the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis – to continue, despite the fact that A 90 -day freezing on external aid. But in A memo for employees last monthA USAID official said that almost all the necessary financing to maintain these programs have been ceased.

The official warned about “preventable death, destabilization and threats to national security on a massive scale”, then was placed on administrative leave after sending the memo.

Reducing the USAID dimension has been part of the wider effort to reduce the federal expenses led by Elon Musk and the Government efficiency department. Musk said on x Last month that they “fed USAID in wood bastards” and that he and Trump agreed that the agency should be closed.

So far, federal judges they refused requests FROM Employees and contractors USAID To continue their activity while the processes that challenge their terminations are played. However, the Supreme Court stated that the Trump administration must pay USAID contractors $ 2 billion for the work already completed.

WHO has a lens to reduce tuberculosis cases by 80% and deaths by 90% by 2030. It was already aspirational, but it is still out of sight now, said Dr. Priya Shete, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

USAID has played a significant role in obtaining diagnostic tools and treatments on the “last kilometer” for patients, said Shete. This included finding ways to transport drugs when road conditions were weak and financing mobile clinics that offered radiographs and bacterial tests.

“The loss of resources to get over the finish line is what is truly disturbing to some people and will cost millions of lives potentially,” she said.

Experts worry that disturbance of clinical trials will also prevent the development of treatments for drugs resistant and new ways to detect cases in children, which are often difficult to diagnose.

“The innovations return and benefit the US,” Davis said.

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