Mozambique: US aid halt threatens health care especially HIV/AIDS – government

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Mozambique: US aid halt threatens health care especially HIV/AIDS – government

6:10 CAT | 10 Feb 2025

File photo: Lusa

The government said on Friday that the suspension of US international aid has compromised health programmes in Mozambique, especially HIV/AIDS, and that it is in ongoing “dialogue” with the US embassy to “mitigate the impacts”.

“The abrupt withdrawal of this support compromises, as you can imagine in some way, the efficiency of the implementation of these programmes (…) The support of the American government finances a considerable part of the provision of health professionals and above all in the area of HIV/AIDS care,” said Inocêncio Impissa, spokesman for the Mozambican government and minister of state administration and civil service, during a press conference in Maputo.

Recognising the “seriousness of the measures” announced by US president Donald Trump, the Mozambican minister nevertheless guaranteed the continuity of essential health services, urging the public not to panic.

The minister said that the suspension of funding also has implications for the purchase and distribution of medicines, and stressed the importance of support to maintain strategic and priority health programmes in Mozambique, such as the fight against HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, among other diseases.

“Both the central warehouse and the regional warehouses are going to experience some overload of medicines over the next few days because the logistics of transporting them to the points where they need to be distributed [has] been disrupted,” the minister said, adding that the ratio of health professionals to inhabitants is also at stake.

According to the minister, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has established a ratio of 45 health professionals per 10,000 inhabitants, but Mozambique has just over 18 professionals per 10,000 inhabitants.

“We are a long way off and this suspension of support is naturally a huge challenge if we are to reach this target,” said Inocêncio Impissa.

“The government has started a dialogue with the United States to reverse or mitigate the scenario of the suspension of funding, but also to mobilise alternative sources of funding,” added Inocêncio Impissa.

The Mozambican minister also said that it would be necessary to define priorities and optimise the country’s existing resources in order to minimise the impact of the suspension of funding on essential services.

“We need to prioritise what should effectively not be missed during the period in which this measure is in place, but also explore emergency funding mechanisms to guarantee the continuity of critical services until a durable and sustainable solution is in fact found,” said the spokesman for the Mozambican executive.

In the early days of his second term, US president Donald Trump suspended all international aid for 90 days, with the exception of humanitarian food programmes and military aid to Israel and Egypt.

Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the region most affected by this decision.

Mozambique, for example, was allocated tens of millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS and emergency food programmes in 2023.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will be the new acting director of USAID, which he accused of being “completely lacking in response capacity”, criticising the “insubordination” in that body.

USAID – whose website disappeared on Saturday without explanation – has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the new administration.

Trump, as well as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), entrepreneur Elon Musk, and some Republican congressmen have criticised USAID – which oversees humanitarian, development and security programmes in around 120 countries – in increasingly harsh terms, accusing it of promoting progressive causes.

Source: Lusa