Taipei, Taiwan – Until recently, the Mekong sub-region in Southeast Asia seemed to be on the right track to reach its goal of eliminating malaria by 2030.
Named for the river of 4,900 kilometers (3,000 miles) which extends from southwest China through Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the region has long been afflicted by the disease behind mosquitoes.
From 2010 to 2023, the number of cases caused by the most common parasite of malaria has increased from almost half a million to less than 248,000, according to the Global Fund, an organization funded by the United States government which is the world’s largest programs to prevent, treat and maintain HIV / AID, tuberculosis and malaria.
Nearly 229,000 of these cases were reported in a single country, Myanmar, where the disease exploded with the outbreak of a civil war in 2021 and the displacement of millions of people.
As the Administration of American President Donald Trump Scale severely foreign aid With the effective dismantling of the American Agency for International Development (USAID), health activists are now fear that the progress made in the Mekong are lost after the officials have targeted the anti-malaria initiative of Myanmar for elimination.
“We launched all our resources on [Myanmar]But by stopping this, malaria will overthrow in Southeast Asia and the Mekong sub-region, “said Alexandra Wharton-Smith, who worked on the Myanmar program of the USAID until he was dismissed by the Trump administration in Al Jazeera of Thailand.
The government of Myanmar estimated that cases have increased by 300% since the start of the civil war, but Wharton-Smith said that independent research indicates that the real figure is more than double.
New cases also emerge in some parts of Thailand that have not seen malaria for years such as refugees and myanmar migrants are crossing the border and are likely to rise following the suspension of programs to fight against the disease, Wharton-Smith said.
The decline in the financing of antimalyter efforts in the Mekong is only one of the many examples of cuts that stimulate the alarm among humanitarian workers in the world South, where the collapse of the USAID threatens decades of progress against health attacks such as tuberculosis, HIV / AIDS, Ebola and malnutrition.
Wednesday, a senior United Nations officials for humanitarian affairs said that the Trump administration had delivered a “seismic shock” to the world aid sector.
“Many will die because this dry aid,” Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday at a press conference.
Once the main world source of international aid, USAID should reduce 5,200 of its 6,200 programs – approximately 83% of the total – According to the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The 5,200 contracts which are now canceled have spent tens of billions of dollars in a way that was not used (and in some cases even injured), the main national interests of the United States,” Rubio told X.
The remaining contracts will be Supervised by the American State Department, He said.
The announcement closed six weeks of troubles for the agency that started on January 20 when Trump issued a 90 -day “break” on American development aid.
Thousands of USAID employees, entrepreneurs and support staff were put on leave or on leave while projects around the world have received a “work stoppage” and a soil.
The confusion followed while NGOs rush to fill budgetary gaps and understand which programs qualified for a derogation announced for vital partners.
The Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration last week to comply with the decision of a lower court Order the government To release $ 2 billion in the background due to USAID partners and entrepreneurs before the break.
On Monday, a federal judge again called on the Trump administration to disclose the “illegally” funded funds, arguing that they had already been appropriate by the US Congress for a specific purpose.
American development aid was the main target of the Ministry of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and an adviser close to Trump.
Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya, said that even if she was agreeing to USAID should be reformed, the Trump administration was given to the Agency has demonstrated a “total lack of understanding of the world”.
“We have argued that the USAID funding mechanism was very, very ineffective. There was not too much attention to the impact, long -term sustainability and things like that, so it was not a perfect system. The problem is that you do not overthrow an imperfect system overnight, “Kyobutungi told Al Jazeera.
“It is not only that people appear and provide pills for medical resistance, there is a whole structure” with humanitarian aid, “said Kyobutunghi.
“It is the total contempt for the way things work, the functioning of the world, the way in which the projects are managed, which is simply surprising.”
Politicized help
Although the full impact of USAID cuts is still visible, a humanitarian worker in a primary non-profit organization that works on malnutrition in several regions, including Africa and the Middle East, said any delay in funding could be fatal.
Among the most risky are the children treated in intensive care units in emergency food stations for complications such as insufficient organs and hypoglycemia, said that the humanitarian worker, who spoke under the cover of anonymity.
“The global humanitarian community has thousands of stabilization centers around the world, supported by American public funds,” the person in Al Jazeera said, asking not to be named due to fears of repercussions.
“This is crucial because with all the ups and downs awaiting requests for renunciation to resume programs, cash problems … We cannot allow these centers to close even a day. Because if the lights go out in these centers, we see children die. »»
“So far, it was never a political problem. Figural hungry children was a bipartite problem and humanitarian aid was apolitical. Now they have politicized him, “added the worker.
We also do not know how the main American projects such as the President’s emergency plan for the relief of AIDS (PEPFAR) and the president of malaria of the president will manage in the future.
Founded by Republican President George W Bush 20 years ago, projects are recognized for saving more than 32 million lives, according to the joint United Nations program on HIV / AIDS (Ononaids) and the archived data of USAID.
They are both financed by the congress but implemented through government organizations such as USAID and the American centers for the control and prevention of diseases, which have also been targeted by the reduction in DOGE costs.
The Unusids, a major partner of Pepfar, said last month that it had been informed that the American government ended its relationship with effect immediately. The agency said HIV programs in at least 55 countries had reported funding for financing.
Subsidies for UNICEF programs targeting polio have also been terminated, according to the United Nations, as is the funding of the United Nations population, which oversees reproductive and sexual health programs.
USAID explicitly refused derogations for all programs related to family planning or “gender ideology”.
NGOs in the field in Asia, Africa and elsewhere now find it difficult to fill the shortcomings in funding and face major disruptions in service, as they received a “work stoppage” during the 90 -day USAID “break”.
Rubio’s most recent declaration on USAID did not do much to eliminate confusion, while food funded by USAID and essential articles remain locked in warehouses, according to two NGO sources.
Back in the Mekong, Wharton-Smith, the former USAID Myanmar program advisor, said that she feared that a net of malaria affairs during the Myanmar border in the past two years will not turn into an USAID withdrawal flood.
“We are going to have more malaria where there has been no malaria before. Many people have lost their immunity, which could mean death, “she said.
“What is happening when we have stopped treating tens of thousands of people for malaria?” In a few weeks, the rainy season arrives and then summer. It’s going to be a disaster.
