Tuberculosis is the world's top infectious killer. Aid groups say Trump's funding freezes will cause more deaths
Source: CNN Health
Published 4:12 AM EDT, Sun March 30, 2025
CNN — When health workers stopped visiting her home in Pakistan to administer tuberculosis medication, Ratna Jamni began dragging herself to a clinic “step by painful step, when even standing feels impossible.” The 40-year-old had been receiving treatment and mental health support for months at home after contracting drug-resistant TB, but those visits have all stopped.
“Every trip is painful, exhausting and humiliating. I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” she told CNN via the Dopasi Foundation, a Pakistan-based NGO whose USAID-funded programs helped provide her health care. “The journey is long, my body is weak, and every breath feels heavier than the last. I wonder if it’s even worth it. I wish this suffering would end – either the help returns or I no longer have to endure this pain.”
Tuberculosis, a bacterial infection usually found in the lungs, remains the world’s top infectious killer, causing 1.25 million deaths worldwide in 2023, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). With the right health care and drugs, TB is treatable and preventable. Without treatment, it has a death rate of close to 50%. Like that of millions of other TB patients across the world, Jamni’s treatment was supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It has now been interrupted by the Trump administration’s sudden freezing, and subsequent cutting, of vast swathes of the agency’s funding. Aid groups and doctors warn that these cuts are likely to cause thousands of unnecessary deaths and a rise in TB infections worldwide, including in the US itself; and create the conditions for an extremely drug-resistant form of the disease to spread.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/30/health/tuberculosis-impact-usaid-funding-intl-scli/index.html
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