Humanitarian organizations have raised alarms about the severe impact of the US foreign aid freeze on health efforts in Ivory Coast.
President Donald Trump’s order to halt US aid abroad threatens ongoing campaigns to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in the West African nation.
Gisele Takalea, deputy president of a network of health associations, emphasized that the freeze could have “disastrous consequences” for Ivory Coast’s fight against these diseases.
“The freeze of foreign aid by the United States represents a grave threat to public health in Ivory Coast,” she said during a press conference in Abidjan.
Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day in office, imposed a 90-day freeze on all US foreign aid for review. While some exemptions were granted, notably to the PEPFAR program, many initiatives have been disrupted.
Takalea noted that PEPFAR was responsible for over half of the funding for HIV-positive individuals in Ivory Coast.
Health centers across the country have struggled with a shortage of anti-retroviral drugs, endangering the lives of thousands of HIV patients, she added.
She also criticized Ivory Coast’s reliance on foreign aid and called for a greater national investment in healthcare.
More than 400,000 people in Ivory Coast live with HIV, according to Sidaction, a French charity.
Other African nations, including South Africa and Lesotho, have voiced concerns about the far-reaching consequences of the aid freeze.
The United States had long been the world’s largest donor of international humanitarian and development assistance.US aid freeze threatens Ivory Coast’s health efforts, say NGOs
