More Than 11,000 Tuberculosis Deaths Since Trump Cuts

[wishstar]

9. Sad especially as we were on track to virtually eliminate TB by 2030

"Health workers based in Cambodia, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa and Eswatini told CNN the biggest cuts to their programs were mostly in active case-finding, which allows for earlier diagnosis to stem the spread of disease, and in community outreach.

One such USAID-funded program in Cambodia, run by local HIV and TB organization KHANA, had screened more than 780,000 people for TB in remote areas, traced more than 16,000 close contacts of TB patients and supported more than 800 patients with multi-drug-resistant TB during the past five years, according to its executive director, Choub Sok Chamreun.

All that work has now stopped. As a result, the number of new TB cases reported in the region has dropped from about 650-850 per month to just 250 in February, meaning that hundreds are going undiagnosed and without care, Chamreun told CNN.

“This means that people don’t come to services. It means that the infection continues to spread over the community … it means that the aim to end TB by 2030 is impossible,” he said, referencing the UN’s goal to largely eliminate the disease by the end of the decade."

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/30/health/tuberculosis-impact-usaid-funding-intl-scli/index.html

Article explains how much of our assistance that ended was in form of grants to fund local organizations in many countries to provide TB testing and treatment as well as laboratory research.