“A lot of people are going to die as a result of this.”
“It has been dismantled. It is dying. I mean, at this point, it’s six weeks in. Twenty million people with H.I.V., for example—including five hundred thousand children—who had received medicines that keep them alive have now been cut off for six weeks.
A lot of people are going to die as a result of this. Am I wrong?
The internal estimates are that more than a hundred and sixty thousand people will die from malaria per year, from the abandonment of these programs, if they’re not restored. We’re talking about twenty million people dependent on H.I.V. medicines—and you have to calculate how many you think will get back on, and how many will die in a year. But you’re talking hundreds of thousands in Year One at a minimum. But then on immunization side, you’re talking about more than a million estimated deaths.
One example: U.S.A.I.D. staff in the Congo had to flee for their lives and watch on television as their own home was destroyed and their kids’ belongings attacked. And then when they called for help and backup, they could not get it. I spoke to staff involved in one woman’s case, a pregnant woman in her third trimester, in a conflict zone. They have maternity leave just like everybody else there. But because the contracts had been turned off, they couldn’t get a flight out, and were not guaranteed safe passage, and couldn’t get care for her complications, and ended up having to get cared for locally without the setup to address her needs. One person said to me, as she’s enduring these things, “My government is attacking me. We ought to be ashamed. Our entire system of checks and balances has failed us.””