U.S. aid cuts push Bangladesh’s health sector to the edge

Bangladesh faces devastating consequences as US aid cuts threaten progress in eradicating tuberculosis and other critical health initiatives.

Bangladesh hoped to celebrate progress towards eradicating tuberculosis this year, having already slashed the numbers dying from the preventable and curable disease by tens of thousands each year. Instead, it is reeling from a $48 million snap aid cut by U.S. President Donald Trump’s government, which health workers say could rapidly unravel years of hard work and cause huge numbers of preventable deaths.

“Doctors told me I was infected with a serious kind of tuberculosis,” labourer Mohammed Parvej, 35, told AFP from his hospital bed after he received life-saving treatment from medics funded by the US aid who identified his persistent hacking cough.

But full treatment for his multidrug-resistant tuberculosis requires more than a year of hospital care and a laborious treatment protocol — and that faces a deeply uncertain future.

“Bangladesh is among the seven most TB-prevalent countries globally, and we aim to eradicate it by 2035,” said Ayesha Akhter, deputy director of the formerly US-funded specialised TB Hospital treating Parvej in the capital Dhaka.

Bangladesh had made significant progress against the infectious bacteria, spread by spitting and sneezing, leaving people exhausted and sometimes coughing blood.

TB deaths dropped from more than 81,000 a year in 2010, down to 44,000 in 2023, according to the World Health Organization, in the country of some 170 million people.

Akhter said the South Asian nation had “been implementing a robust programme”, supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).