The United States has officially ended decades of global health aid to Zimbabwe, cutting funding for programmes targeting HIV and other infectious diseases after the two sides failed to agree on a new “America first” health deal, APA learnt here on Thursday.
Affected projects would be given a short period to wind down operations “responsibly” and complete an “orderly handover,” according to a State Department spokesperson’s remarks reported by The Washington Post.
The decision followed the collapse of negotiations in February over a proposed five-year, US$367 million agreement covering HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, among other health priorities.
In the talks, the US proposed conditioning aid on its access to sensitive medical and biological data held by Zimbabwean authorities – linked to a broader effort to obtain information tied to valuable mineral interests.
Similar frameworks had been signed with more than 30 other countries, but Zimbabwe was among a small group that rejected the terms.
Zimbabwean officials said the proposed data access requirements did not guarantee the southern African country would benefit from medical advances developed using the information.
Zimbabwe also faced further conditions in the US proposal, including US plans to spend only a fraction of what it had paid under earlier, longer-running commitments while requiring Zimbabwe to increase its own spending on the health programmes by more than double over the next four years.
Health advocates warn the impact is likely to be severe.
Health GAP, an organisation that campaigns for access to HIV treatment and prevention, says US funding has supported salaries and training for about 8,300 health workers and helped sustain laboratory services and disease-detection capacity at roughly 1,900 facilities.
Its executive director warned in a letter published last week that the “human costs” could be catastrophic, calling for emergency measures to protect critical services and urging renewed negotiations.
The move fits into the Trump administration’s broader effort to reshape foreign health assistance, following large cuts to the US Agency for International Development last year.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month that the administration intends to preserve what it views as effective parts of health assistance while “rapidly fixing what is broken.”
Zimbabwean officials have responded by saying they will raise domestic spending and seek financing from the Global Fund as they try to contain the fallout from the US pullback.
JN/APA