Kenya and Rwanda agreed similar deals in recent days undertrumps “America First Global Health Strategy”.
The strategy calls for poorer nations to play a bigger role in fighting infectious diseases in their countries and eventually transition from aid to self-reliance. The US funds will support priority health programmes in Uganda on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health and polio amongst other things, the US embassy in Uganda said in a statement.
Uganda’s government will increase its own health expenditure by $500 million “to gradually assume greater financial responsibility over the course of the framework,” its Finance Ministry said in a post on X.
“This collaboration will yield not only disease-specific outcomes but also significant improvements in national systems, institutions and workforce capacity,” Finance Minister Matia Kasaija said.
The US has been a major donor to Uganda’s health sector, but financial support has fallen this year after Trump cut the foreign aid budget and shuttered USAID.
–Reuters–
