In Malawi, clinics could soon run out of important HIV drugs and the Trump administration ordered a freeze on US foreign aid, unable to replenish supply. The suspension has suspended the HIV program led by the U.S. International Development Agency, which impacts around 142,000 girls and young women, where one worker received care from one of its agents’ programs alone last year. He said it could give.
“We are fully hoping that if we suddenly turn off these programs, we will see an exponential increase in new HIV infections,” he said, demanding anonymity in fear of retaliation, and HIV for women and girls The focus was on, but the fired USAID worker said. last week. “People who live with HIV don’t have virus-controlled drugs to avoid giving it to others.”
This week, how this week attempts to dismantle US international humanitarian development USAID, which has had disastrous consequences for women and girls around the world. This is just an example of Taka.
A federal judge on Friday said USAID would suspend a midnight deadline to cut its workforce from over 5,000 to hundreds. Trump’s appointee, US District Judge Carl Nichols, said he would enter a “very limited” temporary restraining order.
More than six USAID workers told NBC News in an interview before the judge’s order that they had already seen the surprising interruption of life-saving care. In addition to maternal and child health, USAID has a large focus on the prevention and treatment of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. This is a disease that affects women and girls with an unbalanced incidence compared to men and boys in several developing regions around the world. The agency is also deeply involved in services that support gender-based violence.
“Disrupting these services is devastating,” said Sara Charles Phillips, who previously oversaw the USAID station for Uside assistance.
A group of pregnant women are waiting to join Guatemala in 2016.
Workers focusing on HIV efforts said many people living with HIV cannot afford to wait.
“The most important thing is that if someone lives with HIV, they take medications every day, they take their lifetime medications. They take those medications from their clinic. “We must be able to enter,” the workers said of the suspended service. “To do that, USAID needs to be able to bring the medicine into the country and take it from the port to the clinic.”
White House Deputy Press Chairman Anna Kelly said in a statement to NBC News that she said “great advocacy over Trump” was “greater advocacy for women and girls amid the turbulent USAID. “There are no ones.”
“President Trump ensures that USAID taxpayer-funded programs are consistent with US national interests,” Kelly said. “He cuts down programs that don’t match the agenda that Americans gave him the task of implementing and maintaining America first in November.”
Before the temporary restraining order, the organization has hundreds of more than 5,000 foreign service personnel, civil servants and private service contractors currently employed, according to two sources familiar with the plan. It was expected to be reduced to.
Elon Musk, the Trump-appointed head of the government’s new efficiency, targeted USAID and described it as a “criminal organisation.” He promoted a conspiracy theory that the agency’s program claims to mask Biovarfare Research.
An improvised room built in La Lima, Honduras in 2022 with the help of USAID (Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images file)
Critics have long argued that it is difficult to quantify organizational outcomes, that agents provide little transparency in foreign aid, and that this is an example of wasted spending. But supporters say that agencies are important lifelines and often provide disastrous resources for childbirth, malaria prevention and education among other issues that women and girls are at risk most That’s what he says. The AIDS and HIV initiative, implemented by USAID, is estimated to have saved more than 25 million lives since its establishment, for example, in 2003. And it does rather “efficiently,” proponents argue, as it accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget.
Three times more women and girls are likely to sign HIV in Africa than men and boys
For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, if USAID oversees services that include HIV prevention and treatment, girls and women aged 15 to 24 years old will be infected with the virus three times more than boys and men of the same age. There is a higher chance that it will. Without sustainable work, these gender gaps could only be deepened, many workers fear.
USAID workers specializing in HIV-related initiatives said the exemptions will be processed and many programs will resume in Malawi next week, but the exemptions do not take into account preventive services. This means that any critical pre-exposure preventive medication treatments, condom services, or behavioral or educational programs are not yet in operation.
“Education, economic strengthening is some of the most important factors in reducing the sensitivity of young women and girls to HIV,” she said. “They are not subject to exemptions. They are definitely not happening right now.”
As the rainy season begins, concerns about malaria
Anlin, a senior community health advisor for the USAID-led Malaria Initiative, who was fired amid a rapid upheaval at the agency, said that “essentially all malaria jobs have been stopped as contractors were left out and direct recruitment was taken off. “It was done.” This has sparked anxiety and concern as the rainy season approaches in some areas. This is because the state doesn’t have time to develop a backup plan, and pregnant women desperately need care.
Lynn said her initiative will get nets, medications and more in clinics and facilities. Without their work, these facilities would probably run out of supplies. This is especially concerning in areas like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which covers most of the region. Pregnant women are three times more likely to develop severe disease than non-pregnant women who have acquired malaria in the same geographical area, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Imagine, I was hoping to go to her clinic and get a net because she’s pregnant. If it’s a net that provides USAID funding, then it’s going on. “No,” Lynn said of the clinic where there is a risk of running out of supplies.
The person holds a seasonal malaria chemoprevention tablet received in 2019 at Koubri’s health centre southeast of Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso (Olympia de Maismont/AFP via Getty Images file)
Roses Rigger, who also works at PMI as a technical advisor to senior malaria, said the initiative’s work spans 27 sub-Saharan African countries, along with three programs in the Mekong region of Asia. It is involved in preventive treatment of 5 million pregnant women in a given year. And last year it provided preventive seasonal antimalarial medications to 14 million children. Currently, time-sensitive measures such as spraying homes with pesticides that are normally scheduled to begin before the rainy season are knocked out of the course. In Uganda, for example, the National Malaria Control Programme has suspended the application of insecticides, said program head Dr. Jimmy Opigo.
“Pregnant women or mothers of ill children will be expected to arrive at medical facilities and will not be properly tested.
The widening gender gap threatened that it could have great geopolitical implications, said a former USAID official who called for anonymity for fear of retaliation. For example, in West Africa, terrorist activity has been rising for some time, but in this region, there was also the highest percentage of contraceptives and the highest percentage of maternal mortality. The combination of population growth and instability contributes only to the threat of these terrorists, she said.
“Running USAID resources from that area now means there is less, less support for peace builders at the community level who are trying to oppose community instability and the threat of terrorist,” he said in the previous article. Officials said. .
And, she said, these issues will ultimately affect Americans domestically.
A temporary house built in La Lima, Honduras in 2022 with the help of USAID (Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images file)
“If women and girls don’t have equal rights, they don’t have the opportunity to go to school, access healthcare, or go to work, their society is getting worse because of that.” Officials said. “Their society is not that healthy. They are not thriving. …It spreads all over the world, including the United States, and contributes to a great risk of the outbreak of diseases that could potentially spread. .”
However, amid the rapid changing developments across the federal government, Lin said it remains important to continue advocating for these services.
“We can still act,” she said. “It’s not too late.”
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