Kampala, Uganda – A nurse died from the Sudan Ebola virus in Uganda on January 29. Two other cases were confirmed a few days later – and hundreds of people were direct contacts. The virus spreads quickly, and it is fatal: the mortality rate of the Sudan strain varied from 40% to 100% in past epidemics, and there are no approved vaccines.
Now, the American agency for international development, a key partner in the treatment of Ebola and the slowdown in its spread, has arrested any funding for global health and all its other projects.
The last time there was an epidemic in 2022 and 2023, Uganda finished it in record time – only 69 days, according to the World Health Organization.
“It had never happened before,” explains Edith, a public health specialist who worked on the previous epidemic. She asked that only her first name be used because she was not allowed to speak with the press. “But now I wonder if the rapid response teams are offered all the necessary finances they need to restrict the spread at such vital moment.”
The Ugandan government says citizens should not panic.
“I just want to make sure that with or without the current frost, we will work according to our means,” explains Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the Ugandan Ministry of Health. “We have … everything at our disposal to manage the situation.”
The apparent closure of the USAID came after a January 20 The newly inaugurated American president, Donald Trump. The order required a 90 -day break on all foreign development aid programs, but it is not clear if these programs will resume later. Within the directive, there was an immediate order for stopping work for all international development activities funded by the United States, including all health programs. This week, the USAID headquarters in Washington, DC, was suddenly closed. The USAID website, and all the data it used to share, is broken down.
The most recent of several Ebola epidemics in Uganda was declared in September 2022, and the United States provided more than 22.3 million US dollars to support the response of the Ugandan government. USAID has paid the tracing of contacts, the distribution of protective equipment, safe burials, fast response and more. He also provided resources to the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other organizations that have managed the emergency response. At the end of its end, in January 2023, 77 people died, according to data from the World Health Organization.
All in all, the USAID budget in 2024 for detection and response of infectious diseases was $ 745 million, and the United States helped respond to 11 Ebola epidemics and other hemorrhagic fevers since 2020.
With these funds withdrawn, it is unlikely that Uganda can contain the epidemic, explains Lawrence Gostin, professor of law at the University of Georgetown and director of the WHO collaboration center for the national and global law of the health.
The end of American efforts to make contact and surveillance contacts could be catastrophic worldwide.
“Ebola could spread silently in an African country and we would be too late to recognize it,” explains Gostin. “As we identified the epidemic, it could have spread widely, including Europe and the United States.”
And the United States, says Gostin, would be “completely unprepared” for an epidemic.
Following the order of Trump, the surveillance of the bird flu has stopped in 49 countries; All MPOX and HIV tests stopped in Sierra Leone; And the USAID no longer follows the epidemic of Marburg virus in Tanzania.
In Uganda, said Atwine, the Ministry of Health has sent rapid response teams to areas with known infections. The country has also launched the first Ebola vaccine in the world, with the World Health Organization, she adds. There are 2,100 doses ready for the trial.
To accelerate early action in response to the epidemic, the World Health Organization allocated $ 1 million – much less than the $ 27 million that was channeled towards the crisis in 2022.
Some Ugandan residents are not convinced that the country can manage the epidemic.
For years, the government has not distributed the amounts allocated by the government to the country’s budget for health services, said Byansi John, a resident of the Wakiso district, one of the alert areas.
Byansi also says that the closure of the USAID should be alarm clock for a country which, according to him, suffers from Savor Blanc syndrome.
“The Trump era should teach us to learn that we cannot always count on foreign aid to meet our health challenges and even all other sectors,” he said. “Americans are nothing to do with us. It is high time to strengthen our systems and make our leaders responsible when they do not deliver, so we get the right services we need. »»
