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WHO Fears US Funding Cuts Will Roll Back Health Gains in Africa

Simon Marks

   ADDIS ABABA - The World Health Organization is fearful that funding
   cuts announced by the U.S. will deter its efforts to control the spread
   of the coronavirus in Africa. Aside from coronavirus, the WHO is
   concerned that vaccine-preventable diseases could also spread as
   countries are forced to cancel vaccination programs.

   President Donald Trump's decision last week to suspend U.S. funding for
   the World Health Organization could deter the continent's ability to
   stamp out not only the coronavirus but other deadly diseases such as
   malaria and HIV/AIDS, a senior WHO official told VOA.

   The U.S. is the main funder of WHO programs linked to malaria, polio
   and HIV/AIDS in Africa. [1]Currently, the U.S. has pledged $400 million
   to the WHO's $4.8 billion 2020-2021 budget.
   While its pledges are mostly locked in for this year, WHO officials
   expect the U.S. funding suspension to start biting in 2021.

   Michel Yao, emergency operations program manager at the WHO's Regional
   Office for Africa, spoke to VOA via a messaging app.

   "This support is what helps to provide technical support or even to
   have a technical position in a country. Some of them, a program like
   malaria, need to have continued support based in a WHO country office.
   So all these technical positions and also work that is required while
   convening experts to work on a specific guideline for a given disease,
   this also the funding was helping, and sometimes even some of the
   supplies on HIV issues. So, all of this, of course, will suffer if this
   gap is not covered," saidYao.

   For COVID-19 prevention efforts, the WHO has repurposed many of its
   staff to deal with the outbreak. While money has been set aside for
   2020, question marks hang over those roles for next year.

   "In the case of COVID, some of these technical people have been
   repurposed. Of course, lots of them got their contracts extended but
   maybe from next year, if we don't have enough funds then we'll have to
   cut on staff. It will also affect [things] because some of them have
   been repurposed based on that. If this shortage continues it will
   definitely affect our HR plan for next year," said Yao.

   Yao denounced claims that the WHO was slow to respond to the
   coronavirus outbreak or that the organization has been too
   "China-centric." He said that a team of international experts was sent
   to Wuhan, where the original outbreak occurred, as early as January 1
   to report on the scale and danger of the outbreak.

References

   1. https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/budget/WHOPB-PRP-19.pdf?ua=1

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