Emergency food, tuberculosis tests and HIV drugs: vital health assistance remains frozen despite a court decision

Funds for the necessary health programs around the world remain frozen, and their work was not able to resume, despite the order of a federal judge, which temporarily stopped the dismantling of the administration of Trump’s main government foreign assistance agency.

Interviews with people working on health initiatives in Africa and Asia showed that parents in Kenya, who are believed that tuberculosis cannot test them. There is no pristine drinking water for people who escaped from the civic conflict in the camps in Nigeria or Bangladesh. The therapeutic food program cannot treat sharply malnourished children in South Sudan.

“We have people traveling 300 kilometers from the mountains to find medicines in other hospitals, because there is no one where they live,” said Makele Hail, which runs an organization that helps people living with HIV in the Tigray region in Ethiopia and was based on the financing of the agency United States for international development. “USAID provided medicine and transported them to rural places. Now these people are thrown away without the relevant information. “

A spokesman for the State Department said on Tuesday that the Secretary of State Secretary Marco Rubio issued over 180 exemptions allowing for resumption of life -saving activities, and that more was approved every day. The department did not answer the request to provide a list of 180 projects.

But even programs with dismissals are still frozen, according to people in over 40 groups financed by USAID, because the payment system that USAID used to pay funds has not been operated for weeks. Without access to this money, programs cannot function.

On Thursday evening, judge Amir H. Ali from the American District Court for the Colombia District rejected the application for the maintenance of Trump’s administration in court for further freezing of assist, considering that the government confirmed that “rapid compliance with the decision” was required.

But he wrote that the order to restrict “does not allow the accused to continue the general suspension of foreign aid intended by the Congress” to “come up with a recent, post-hoc rationalization for Very suspension.”

Organizations usually receive subsidies in tiny increases, submitting demand for the activities they carry out. They rely on this quick phrases to act. Many affected groups are non -profit organizations that have no other source of funds.

“Some non -governmental organizations have received layoffs, but layoffs without money are only pieces of paper – and you cannot launch programs with only paper,” said Tom Hart, general director of the interaction, which represents 165 organizations that provide foreign assistance. “These organizations have not received payment for work from December and are zero certainty that they will receive payment for this job or any work in the future.”

Speaking at a meeting with assistance organizations last week, Peter Marocco, the denominator of Trump, who is currently the director of the Foreign Assistance Bureau in the Department of State, said that the payment system was offline, but would be restored until February 18. stayed.

Mr. Morocco signed declaration submitted to the judge in a federal court, reporting government compliance with a limiting order. In it, he argued that the administration acted on the basis of other provisions, not an executive order, to further freeze financing.

Trump’s administration insists that the dismissal system allows you to continue working in an emergency. However, the process of issuing exceptions was sophisticated, said the spokesman of the State Department, because the department had to check whether their search organizations did not present their activities.

“The department stated that many actions that were previously described as a life -saving humanitarian aid in reality included programs of Dei or sex ideology, transgender operations or other assist of life and efforts, which clearly oppose the American foreign policy program specified by the president,” said the statement .

USAID did not finance sex transition operations; Programs that focused on sex included efforts to protect women against domestic violence and prevent HIV infection in sensitive teenage girls.

Organizations that have received exemptions report that one or two activities in larger projects have been approved for restart, while the surrounding and related activities are still frozen.

The head of a vast organization providing health care, who asked for it, because he was unable to talk to the media through the uase-stop-work order, said that his agency received two out of 24 dismissals for which they submitted the application. If the organization had all the exemptions, it would cover about five percent of its activities. So far, they have not received any funds. “I can’t buy medications with dismissal,” he said.

Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation is the only organization that the times in the broad study of USAID recipients, which resumed work after receiving the dismissal.

But the foundation was unable to access any recent money. To restart the HIV testing and treatment programs, he used the money she received as a repayment for payments before the decision, said Trish Karlin, vice president of the organization’s executive. She said that the foundation received exemptions for 13 out of 17 projects.

“For prizes in which we are not financed from advances, but rather we receive arrears after invoicing the US government, we did not receive payment and we do not have almost $ 5 million,” she said.

Karoun Demirjian reporting brought.