Fred de Sam Lazaro:
For patients whose X-rays find lesions that might be tuberculosis, this is the start of a journey that will take them next for more accurate testing and, accordingly, for treatment.
The goal is to catch infections early and start patients on a strict six-month course of daily medication before the disease can spread further. And it’s here’s that many fear progress will stall, or worse. After the Trump administration issued a stop-work order in January, detection, treatment, and research efforts like these were scaled back or shut down. Thousands of health workers lost their jobs.
Many were employed by the USAID-funded International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research. Center officials declined to participate in this report. Like many defunded USAID grantees, they cited fear of jeopardizing potential future funding.
