UN: Cuts in US foreign aid threaten to increase maternal mortality
Kyiv • UNN
The UN warns that cuts in aid budgets could undo progress in reducing deaths of women during pregnancy and childbirth. Curtailment of services is already being recorded in many countries.
Budget cuts for aid threaten to undermine years of progress in reducing the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth, the United Nations warns, UNN writes, citing Reuters.
Details
A report by UN agencies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), released on Monday, notes that between 2000 and 2023, maternal mortality worldwide fell by 40%, largely due to improved access to basic health services.
Now this trend may reverse, according to a WHO statement accompanying the report, which does not mention specific cuts, but which comes after a freeze on foreign aid by the US government and the termination of funding for many programs through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Other donor countries, including the UK, have also announced plans to cut aid budgets.
One of the main messages is that funding cuts threaten not only progress, but could also lead to a reversal
According to Aylward, these cuts have a "pandemic-like impact" on health systems around the world and could have a "more structural, deeply rooted effect."
WHO said the cuts have already led to a curtailment of vital maternal, newborn and child health services in many countries. This includes staff reductions, facility closures and supply chain disruptions. Treatment for bleeding and pre-eclampsia is also hampered.
Cuts in other areas, such as the treatment of malaria and HIV, will also affect maternal survival, the UN said. Even before the US-led aid cuts, some countries had seen a reversal, and progress had slowed worldwide since 2016, the report said.
In 2023, despite recent progress, a woman still died approximately every two minutes - a total of approximately 260,000 that year. These were due to complications that were mostly preventable and treatable, the report added.
The situation was particularly bad in countries affected by conflict or natural disasters, although the US itself is one of four countries where maternal mortality has increased significantly since 2000, along with Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
The COVID-19 pandemic also had an impact, the report said. In 2021, an additional 40,000 women died from pregnancy or childbirth, bringing the total number of deaths that year to 322,000.
While this report shows glimmers of hope, the data also highlight how dangerous pregnancy remains in most countries of the world today - despite the fact that solutions to this problem exist
Addition
Researchers warn that decades of progress in HIV treatment and prevention could be undone. By the end of the decade, due to cuts in foreign aid by Western governments, the number of people infected with HIV could increase by 10 million, and almost 3 million people could die.
