NEW DELHI: The US government has struck a deal to continue supplying some of the world’s poorest nations including many African countries with free life-saving medication and equipment for mothers, infants and young children, after months of uncertainty and challenges with supply.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF will now procure these items, a State department spokesperson told Reuters by email, without giving details of the arrangement. UNICEF said the agreement is worth $25 million and will last for one year. That sum represents only a small part of the aid aႇected by the Trump administration’s cuts and dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
But it means that some of the world’s most vulnerable nations will not face another abrupt disruption to supplies they relied on while they work on new health aid deals with the US. The agreement covers the procurement and delivery of maternal and child health supplies, as well as some nutrition supplies, to at least 15 countries previously covered, including Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti and Mali, UNICEF said.
It follows almost
18 months of disruption after Washington’s move to freeze and then scale back many US aid programmes as part of its “America First Global Health Strategy”. In countries such as Congo, shortages due to the disruption have already been showing up on the ground.
Supply shortage
At the Nyangezi General Hospital in eastern Congo, health workers said they had run out of supplies of life-saving medications including oxytocin to prevent and treat post-partum haemorrhage and amoxicillin, an antibiotic for paediatric use and during childbirth. “It was a donation we received (previously) from USAID, and at the moment, there is none,” midwife Alice Bulambo said.
While many nations were already moving towards taking over their maternal and child health needs, lead times for orders can be a year or more, a former USAID oႈcial said. The Congolese government aims to take over by next year, but has struggled with the recent uncertainty.
