TB Community Coordination Hub Statement in Response to U.S. Stop Work Orders for Foreign Aid
14 February 2025
February 14, 2025
The global TB community expresses deep concern about the unfolding impact of the recent stop work orders on tuberculosis (TB) programs around the world. We applaud advocates who secured a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance and urges the U.S. Government to immediately resume funding for the full range of tuberculosis services: screening, detection, treatment, prevention of TB to all populations, local engagement and peer support, social support including mental health, treatment support, nutrition and strengthening of national TB programs in USAID’s 24 priority countries, as well as technical support to other key countries. We ask that all of USAID’s current and proposed TB programs be re-started without delay or modification to limit any long-term impacts from the stop work order.
While US funded projects are disrupted, there is a risk of 11 thousand people with TB not completing their treatment each day!
As the world’s leading killer among infectious diseases, TB continues to affect millions, especially people living with HIV, in poverty or densely populated environments, and other vulnerable groups. In 2023 alone, an estimated 10.8 million people fell sick with TB worldwide, and 1.25 million died – 15% of whom were children and young adolescents (WHO 2024 Global TB Report).
USAID is the largest bilateral donor in the fight to end TB, having invested more than $USD $4.7 billion to combat the airborne disease since 2000, which has saved more than 79 million lives. In 2023, USAID supported 5 million people to complete their TB treatment, which is an average of 11,000 people every day (figures are from the USAID TB report previously on their website and now taken down). The cessation of funding for critical TB services where people seek care, such as awareness raising, prevention, early screening and diagnosis, treatment, as well as supporting people throughout with mental health provisions, peer counselling, and nutritional support, poses grave risks to public health, threatening to undo years of progress made in TB elimination worldwide.
The stop work order from the new Trump Administration has already had an enormous impact on ongoing TB services. Treatment for many people has abruptly stopped, which puts individuals at great risk and will fuel the spread of the disease within communities and across the world. We also know that treatment interruption and delayed diagnosis leads to antimicrobial resistance, which makes this curable disease more difficult to cure and is a known public health threat. Organizations critical to the fight are also terminating staff and closing their doors, which means the talent and infrastructure needed to effectively respond to TB and other infectious diseases is crumbling before our eyes.
Stopping all this work will have massive human and economic costs. Even before a sudden pull out of US funding, at the current levels of global investment 43 million people would develop TB by 2030, leading to 6.6 million lives lost and a global economic cost of US$ 1 trillion (Stop TB Global Plan). Without US funding, these figures of preventable deaths and costs will significantly increase.
Airborne bacteria like TB do not know any borders – TB anywhere is TB everywhere; and TB is indeed everywhere! Just as stop work orders started flowing from the U.S., reports of outbreaks in the U.S. started gaining media attention. Near or far – as humans we are all connected and we are in this fight to end TB together!
We not only call for the U.S. Government to immediately resume funding for the full range of TB services, we urge that the new U.S. administration make tuberculosis a top priority for the future of U.S. assistance following this 90 day review.
And as ever, as a global community committed to end TB:
We stand with the people and communities affected by and at risk of TB around the world who are not able to access diagnostic, preventive and curative services.
We stand with the people who do not know if they will be able to refill the prescriptions that keep them alive, and who rely on the U.S. leadership in combating this global pandemic.
We stand with the organizations and healthcare workers providing life-saving and timely diagnosis, prevention and treatment services to people with TB, offering them a chance to recover from the world’s leading infectious disease.
We stand with community-led organizations who are struggling to keep the lights on and are often underappreciated for the critical complementary work they do to support people through treatment, monitor activities, hold actors to account, center rights, justice, and people in care, and more.
As a united TB community from across regions, we deplore the rhetoric being used to vilify international cooperation and public health, and that is hurting those who are already most vulnerable.
We applaud and appreciate the efforts of our fellow advocates to revoke the stop work orders and protect investments in global health and foreign aid.
We commit to continuing to work in solidarity for the right to health for all and to base our actions on scientific evidence and data.
And we will continue to amplify the voice for people affected by TB around the world.
The TB Community Coordination Hub brings together global voices of civil society and the people and communities affected by TB, collecting evidence and stories on the impact of the U.S. administration’s stop work order. tbcommunitycoordinationhub.com
If your organization delivers TB services or projects and has been impacted by the U.S. stop work order on foreign aid, please spare ~ 15 minutes to complete аn impact survey, available in English, Russian and French.
