INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Cuts to aid budgets are threatening to undermine years of progress in reducing the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth,
and could lead to a rise in deaths, the United Nations has warned.
Globally, there was a 40% decline in maternal deaths between 2000 and
2023, a report by UN agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO) showed on Monday, largely due to better access to essential
health services.
That could now go into reverse, the WHO said in a statement accompanying the report which did not mention specific cuts but
came in the wake of a foreign aid freeze by the U.S
government and the ending of funding through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for many programmes.
Other donor
countries including Britain have also announced plans to cut aid budgets.
“One of the headline messages is that the funding cuts risk not
only that progress, but we could have a shift backward,” said Dr Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage at
the WHO.
The cuts have had “pandemic-like effects” on health systems globally and could have a “more structural, deep-seated
effect,” Aylward added.
The WHO said the cuts were already rolling back vital services for maternal, newborn and child health in many
countries, reducing staff numbers, closing facilities and disrupting supply chains for supplies including treatments for hemorrhage and
pre-eclampsia.
Cuts to other areas, such as malaria and HIV treatment, would also impact maternal survival, the UN said.
Even before the aid
cuts led by the United States, things were backsliding in some countries, and progress has slowed globally since 2016, the report said.
In
2023, despite recent progress, a woman still died roughly every two minutes – around 260,000 in total that year – from complications
that were mainly preventable and treatable, it added.
The situation was particularly bad in countries affected by conflict or natural
disaster, although the U.S
itself is one of only four countries to have seen its maternal mortality rate increase significantly since 2000, alongside Venezuela, the
Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
The COVID-19 pandemic also had an impact, the report said: 40,000 more women died due to pregnancy or
childbirth in 2021, bringing the total number of deaths that year to 322,000.
“While this report shows glimmers of hope, the data also
highlights how dangerous pregnancy still is in much of the world today – despite the fact that solutions exist,” WHO Director-General
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
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