As USAID halts contracts worldwide, healthcare services collapse

USAID suspends health contracts globally, causing widespread service disruptions that affect vital healthcare initiatives and aid.

As President Donald Trump’s administration neared the conclusion of a review to make sure foreign aid is in line with its “America First” policy, notifications of termination were sent out Thursday for US-funded health projects around the world, including vital lifesaving initiatives.

In January, Trump issued an order to halt all foreign aid for 90 days in order to determine if the projects aligned with his administration’s foreign policy. Despite US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s earlier promises that waivers would safeguard life-saving help, a court filing on February 25th showed that over 90% of programs worldwide were eventually shut down, including those that had been granted exemptions in the first place. Projects tackling HIV, malaria, maternal health, and other essential healthcare services were among them.

Three senior officials of health organizations in South Africa said they were told that financing for some of the biggest HIV/AIDS programs financed by the United States would not be renewed. The majority of contracts for a significant international non-profit organization that works on maternity and newborn health and malaria were also canceled.

According to documents obtained by Reuters, the United Nations organization responsible for combating HIV and AIDS, UNAIDS, had its agreement with the United States organization for International Development (USAID) terminated. According to a source acquainted with its operations, Khana, a Cambodian nonprofit that focuses on HIV and TB, was also sent a notice of termination.

Requests for response from the US State Department were not immediately answered, and it is still unknown how many organizations globally were impacted or what precise standards were applied when making the terminations.

The official termination notice, which Reuters was able to view, read, “Secretary Rubio and (USAID) Deputy Administrator (Peter) Marocco have determined your award is not aligned with Agency priorities and made a determination that continuing this program is not in the national interest.”

Beatriz Grinsztejn, president of the International AIDS Society, responded to the broad cuts by warning that vital healthcare services were failing. “The system is being dismantled by the US funding cuts. Treatment for HIV is failing. TB services are disintegrating. “Lives are at stake,” she declared. The cuts have no direct impact on her organization.

In South Africa, some of the defunded initiatives offered HIV/AIDS services to vulnerable populations, such as sex workers and LGBT+ people.