In Nanyuki, a market city northwest of Monte Kenia, some foreign aid workers and volunteers are concerned about what the dismantling of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, of the United States International Development Agency will mean for people there.
“It is a concern. It is a real problem,” said Rex Taylor, co -founder and president of The Small Project, a registered Canadian beneficial organization that helps send children to school in the rural area of Kenya.
“In my opinion, it will mean that people will die unnecessarily,” News told CBC while in an annual visit to Nanyuki.
Kenya has one of HIV’s highest rates in the world, occupying the 11th position with a prevalence of 3.7 percent in 2022, according to the World Health Organization. Around 1.4 million Kenyans are HIV positive, according to the non -profit organization that are. AMFAR, the basis for AIDS investigation, points out that around 1.3 million people are in HIV/AIDS treatment in the country.
Kenya is based on the direct financing of the United States for 29 percent of its HIV -related expense, according to Unusida, the tenth most reliable country in the world.
Taylor says that his concern is that the freezing of Trump’s foreign aid could reduce his access to antiretroviral medication (ARV), which prevents HIV from replicating in the body.
But in particular, Taylor says he is concerned about Joseph Awoi, an aspiring 20 -year -old culinary student in Nanyuki. Taylor, who lives in Newmarket, Ontario, has been supporting Awoi’s education through the small project since Awoi was a child.
In May, Awoi, an orphan who was born deaf and HIV positive, will attend a culinary program in Nairobi through this continuous financing. While its educational financing is not related to USAID, like many other Kenyans, Awoi depends on ARV.
And Taylor says he is sharing Awoi’s story to put a face on the potential impact of USAID’s cuts.
“It is a situation that still develops here. It is under radar, people don’t think about it,” Taylor said.
“People need to know that there are real people who do not have the resources, due to the circumstances of their country and their birth, who, if the threats come out of the way we fear that they will do it, will mean that they begin to get sick.”
Humanitarian aid efforts in chaos
The Trump administration announced last week that it was canceling almost 10,000 subsidies and foreign aid contracts worth almost $ 60 billion of the United States, resinguing about 90 percent of the USAID’s global work.
The USAID closure is part of an unprecedented reduction of the federal government by the efficiency department of the Government of Elon Musk. The sudden disappearance of the help agency has generated global humanitarian relief efforts in chaos.
Last Friday, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said he was deeply concerned about severe cuts in foreign assistance in the United States, in a strong reprimand of the measure that said he would be “especially devastating” for vulnerable people in the world.
“Going through these cuts will make the world less healthy, less safe and less prosperous. The reduction of the humanitarian paper and influence will be contrary to US interests worldwide,” Guterres said in a statement to UN journalists.
While the decision of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to freeze most of the foreign aid for 90 days, reverberates worldwide, Salimah Shijvi de CBC analyzes how these cuts are making life even more difficult for Rohingya refugees persecuted inside Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, the world’s largest refugee camp.
Financing for programs that combine HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other programs have stopped, he said.
Humanitarian aid through the emergency plan of the president of the United States for AIDS relief, or Pepfar, to combat HIV in Kenya was largely funded by USAID. In the last two decades, the United States government, through Pepfar, has spent more than $ 8 billion of the USA. In HIV/AIDS treatment for about 1.3 million people in Kenya, reports The Associated Press.
Last month, Margaret Odera, a community health worker who lives in Nairobi, wrote a plea about LinkedIn, expressing his fears that the United States was “withdrawing from assistant countries such as mine from ARV supplies.”
“Many are admiring you as a leading country and superpower. Saving lives does not make you poorer,” Odera wrote.
“We are praying for you.”
‘What happens when the drug supply is exhausted?’
At the end of January, the Kenya Ministry of Health issued a statement that reiterated its commitment to maintain HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs.
“The ministry is actively involving other development partners and invests in local pharmaceutical manufacturing to prevent treatment interruptions,” said Dr. Patrick Mock, general director of Health.
But without a strong contingency plan, “the abrupt end of Pepfar’s financing will have devastating consequences,” he wrote three professors of medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba in an article published in the conversation on February 24.
The University of Manitoba has been associated with the program of scope of sex workers (Swop) and a local agency in Nairobi for 45 years, wrote the assistant Prof. Julie Lajoie, Prof. Keith Fowke and the doctoral candidate Toby Le.
The association with Swop has been funded by Pepfar since 2003.
If this financing ends, “this would mean no more HIV tests, preventive treatment and antiretroviral therapy, which would increase the risk of transmission, which would lead to an increase in cases and even a greater number of deaths in people living with HIV,” the teachers wrote.
The USAID workers who lost their work received 15 -minute intervals to clear their desks on Thursday in the middle of a massive demolition of the widely successful program. The workers were received with cheers of the followers when they left the building for the last time.
In Nanyuki, nobody really knows what will happen next, and there is a lot of concern, says Taylor. He will continue to support Awoi, including “absolutely” paying for his medications through the beneficial organization if that becomes necessary, Taylor said.
But he also cares about all other people in Kenya who may not be able to pay antiretrovirals.
“There are many children, and many adults, who are like him,” Taylor said.
“What happens when the drug supply is exhausted?”
