USAID Funding Freeze Has Massive Impact on Global Tuberculosis Prevention

The actions of the Trump administration to freeze foreign aid delivered by USAID has “sent shockwaves throughout the community of people working on tuberculosis (TB) treatment, diagnosis, and prevention.” CIDRAP has the news.

Funding was frozen for 90 days by the Trump administration, and the fallout from the freeze has “left no parts of the global TB control community untouched.” USAID accounts for roughly “one third of international donor funding” for tuberculosis, saving the lives of over 58 million TB patients since 2000. Diagnosis and treatment services around the world have been forced to close upon receiving stop-work orders. Experts say that “any interruption to TB services can have significant and deadly consequences for the patients and communities most affected by the world's leading infectious disease killer.”

The Stop TB Partnership organization is an example of what kind of work the funding freeze has stopped. The organization “works on TB response with more than 2,000 partners in 100 countries.” Its executive director, Lucica Ditiu, noted that “many people running TB programs that have received stop-work orders are unclear if the waiver applies to them.” Many of these organizations have to thread a careful line between continuing to provide life-saving care and not appearing as though they have disregarded stop-work orders, out of fear that there will be repercussions for doing so.

There are concerns that this pause in funding will result in new all-time lows in diagnosis and treatment for the disease. Additionally, research could be impacted, as USAID was the third-largest donor to TB research in 2023, investing $41 million.

Media reports have also indicated that the “Trump administration plans to retain only a fraction of the roughly 10,000 USAID employees worldwide and has begun to cancel hundreds of USAID contracts and grants.” Commentators note that the work supported by USAID helps “ensure that outbreaks caused by TB and other deadly infectious diseases are identified quickly and managed in the places they're happening before they reach the United States.”