Decisions made by the U.S. government in the past months have raised concerns in global healthcare circles, with officials afraid ramifications of these decisions will cost lives, and result in public misinformation and harm.
One of the areas of concern relates to the Trump administration’s decision to reduce funding for HIV/Aids programs. Among the non-profit organisations affected is the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
A report in The Conversation highlights what it calls ‘the enormous progress’ made by such organisations in the past two decades in confronting and tackling the global HIV epidemic. “The number of people dying from HIV-related causes has fallen by 51% since 2010; and the number of annual new infections has fallen from 2.1 million new infections in 2010 to 1.3 million in 2023 (a drop of 39%),” it reads. “In 2003, around 400,000 people living in low and middle-income countries were able to access the life-saving antiretroviral therapy drugs to manage the virus.”
The Trump administration’s cuts will effectively leave millions without essential HIV prevention and treatment services. The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is a further cause of concern, and this is expected to further impact the lives of those living with HIV and Aids, and to exacerbate the situation.
Measles Vaccines In Spotlight As Cases Surge
This is not the only area of concern which health officials are clamouring to bring to the media’s attention. A current outbreak of measles in the U.S. has been linked to low measles vaccination rates, with 97 percent of those infected having not received a measles vaccine. Breaking news headlines read ‘Measles is spreading across the US – here is what you need to know’.
As measles spreads through Texas and across state borders to New Mexico, among other areas, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that all grants for research on why some people are reluctant to be vaccinated and how to increase acceptance of vaccines have been cancelled. The reason cited for this decision is that vaccine education does not ‘align with NIH funding priorities.’
In the year 2000, U.S. officials officially declared that measles had been effectively eliminated in the country. The current outbreak, which seems to be centred around Texas, has been linked to waning measles vaccination rates.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that there have been five outbreaks in the United States this year and that 483 cases, in 20 jurisdictions, are confirmed. As high as 93 percent of these cases are outbreak-related. In 2024, 16 outbreaks were reported, with just 69 percent of the cases being outbreak-linked.
Texas has been the most affected, with 400 confirmed measles cases. New Mexico has reported 44 confirmed cases.
Texas health officials have traced the outbreak to two unvaccinated adults living in Houston, who became infected with the virus when travelling overseas. An additional two cases were later identified in Gaines county. This time, two children contracted measles. They were also unvaccinated.
The spread of measles through Gaines country has been fairly rapid. At least 270 people were infected soon after the initial four. Of note is that Gaines county is a rural area where there is a low vaccination rate.
This outbreak subsequently spilled into neighbouring communities, including those across the state border, in New Mexico. The first case here was reported on 11 February.
While measles is one of the most infectious diseases, it can be preventable by vaccine. “Most of the cases are occurring in a Mennonite community that largely homeschools, so there would not be school vaccine mandates,” Bill Moss, MD, MPH, a professor in Epidemiology and executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center says in a report on the official John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health site.
The CDC says that one in 5 people will be hospitalized for measles if they do not receive the measles vaccine. Statistics show that three of 1,000 children will die when infected with measles.
Lost Healthcare Jobs Shock Communities
In a recent move, the Trump administration announced it had begun mass cuts of federal policy researchers. More than half of employees at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality have lost their jobs. These agencies are part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The cost for keeping both of these agencies running is less than $600 million combined: 0.04% of what the federal government spends on health care.
U.S. News reports explain that literally thousands of people whose job has been to oversee and implement health insurance programs, track health trends and disease outbreaks, guide medical research and oversee the safety of medicine and food, have lost their jobs.
These developing news items highlight how closely politics and healthcare go hand in hand, and perhaps the need for government officials and healthcare organisations to collaborate for the safety and well-being for all.