USAID’s Chocking News

Together with thousands of health and human support workers around the world, the staff at Kinondo Kwetu Hospital on January 27 received the chocking news that USAID halted all support for 90 days, with immediate effect. As a result, the 15 persons employed by USAID at Kinondo Kwetu Hospital with the task to keep our 990 HIV-infected patients from developing HIV, were stopped from coming to work.

 This work also included the successful efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV during delivery and later in childhood, as well as outreach in the villages to work against the spread of infection and give support and care to families suffering from the consequences of AIDS.

 We do not yet know if this termination of support will be definite. We have recently got the information that a fraction of the staff is allowed back for a 30-day period, only to administer HIV medicine, but leaving out important features, like the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.