USAID has saved Kajol alive – but after cuts it struggles

When Coyle signed a contract with tuberculosis in January, Usaid retained her alive. Now she and her family are at risk after Trump’s administration has ordered to finish most expenses to the US.

TV can be deadly if not treated. Highly contagious bacterial disease, which usually infects the lungs, is not common in rich countries because the treatment is relatively cheap. But Bangladesh has a scoop.

This is especially true in such neighborhoods as Mohammadpur, the slum in the Daka capital, where there are 17, the coyol.

“We are poor people,” she says. She is the only breadwinner for herself, mother and younger brother. Her work at the clothing plant keeps them all afloat.

So when she became ill in January, it could have been catastrophic.

Instead, the help came via Dipa Halder. Over the past three years, she has overcome Mohammadpur’s residents about tuberculosis and has received people who are so desperate for free.

The initiative, which conducts people testing and treating them, including proper nutrition, is guided by a local meter help. It was financed by the US Agency for International Assistance (USAID) until February, when it received a letter from the US government, which said the funds were abolished.

This led to the appeal of the coyola, only partially completed, sharply.

Disabling medication in the middle of treatment makes the chances of tuberculosis become much greater to drugs. This makes the disease much more severe to fight and puts patients with greater risk of serious illness and death.

The government provides free medicines, but diagnosing and collecting medicines for many may be expensive.

“Now I have to go medicine myself,” she says. “I’m fighting a lot.”

“People here are quite vulnerable,” Dipa says, 21.

“Do I try to provide them with some financial assistance to our organization so that they can continue treatment.”

According to a report on the implementation of the US government, which was noticed by the BBC, USAID support in 2023 led directly to the identification and reporting of more than a quarter of tuberculosis in Bangladesh. The same year there were 296 487 new or recidiv cases of tuberculosis that were cured or successfully completed as a result of USAID.

The agency was regarded as an integral struggle of the country against tuberculosis.

“You ask people on the street, they will say that yes, this is the US, these are those who support it (tuberculosis) in control,” said the USAID project director in Bangladesh, who has no right to talk publicly and did not want it to be called.

“Bangladesh was the largest USAID program in Asia,” says Asif Saleh, executive director of the Brac. “From the point of view of its impact, especially in the health care, it was massive.

“Especially around vaccination, reduction of infant mortality and mortality from the mother, USAID plays a big role in this country.”

In 2024, Bangladesh received $ 500 million. This year, this amount has increased to $ 71 million. To translate this number into context, for the three-year period from 2021-2023, USAID made an average of $ 83 million annually in Bangladesh only for health care initiative, including the fight against tuberculosis.

The USAID slices mean that the hills could no longer offer its “Stop -Tuberculosis” program, but it also means that Dipa doesn’t work. She supports her elderly parents and her younger sister.

“Now I am completely broken when I lost work. I carry the burden of the family. Being unemployed is a destructive situation,” she said the BBC.

The document, noticed by the BBC, 113 programs that were funded directly at the USAID office in Bangladesh. The list does not include many programs funded directly by US agencies in Washington.

“At least 500,000 people work in the NGO (Bangladesh) sector,” says Mr. Saleh. “It’s huge. Thousands and thousands of jobs will be eliminated.”

It is not just the United States that depart from foreign aid. The UK has announced the reduction of its foreign aid programs, as well as Switzerland. It is likely that other countries may follow the example.

This is a sober reality for Bangladesh. The country’s government was overthrown last year, and the economy is shaky, inflation is almost 10% and the workplace crisis, especially among young people.

Temporary leader Muhammad Yunus says Bangladesh will come up with a new strategy for how to survive after reducing help – but does not say how.

When he pressed in an interview with the BBC about how the country would cover USAID deficits, Yunus said: “It was a small part, not a big deal. This does not mean that Bangladesh will disappear from the map.”

Asif Saleh says the way of implementing the reduction was sharp and chaotic. The impact on such a country as Bangladesh is immeasurable.

Nowhere is it more clearly than in the Cox Bazaar, the coastal city in the southeast Bangladesh, where the world’s largest refugee camp is located. More than a million Rohinji, persecuted by a Muslim minority, which the United Nations calls on the victims of ethnic purification, escaped with rigid cleaning in the home country, neighboring Myanmar.

It is impossible to return home and unable to work outside the refugee camp, Rohin depends on international aid for their survival.

The United States has made almost half all the help of refugees Rohondji.

“We ended soap,” says the flowers, a representative of the UNISF children’s agency. “Now we need to broadcast water into the camp. This is an absolutely critical time. There is an outbreak of cholera from more than 580 cases as well as a scabbard.”

Water supply projects in the camps are previously funded by USAID.

Ever since the order to stop the work came into force in late January, hospital such as the Red Cross International Hospital in the Cox Bazaar are reduced only to emergency assistance. Any hope that the money will be restored was defeated this week when the Trump administration canceled more than 80% of all USAID programs.

Patients such as Hamid Begum, who regularly received hypertension, remain with several options.

“I’m old and I have no one to help me,” she says. Last year, her husband died, leaving her to care for four children, including her 12-year-old daughter who cannot walk.

“I can’t go to another hospital away from home from my daughter.”

In the nearby UN distribution center, Rehan Begum stands next to two large bags.

Inside, she said, there are six liters of culinary oil and 13 kg of rice, as well as bases such as onions, garlic and dry chili. These rations given to the World Food Program (WFP) should serve her and her family month.

I ask how she will succeed now if her rations are cut in half, starting from next month.

She looked shocked. Then she started crying.

“How can we survive with such a small amount?” Asks 47 -year -old echo, which is shared by one number with her husband and five children. “Even now it’s hard to manage.”

WFP claims to be forced to make a sharp part of the “critical lack of funding for emergency response operations”.

The rations that are now allocated to the Rohinji community will meet their basic daily dietary needs, igniting the fears with which they will remain enough to live rather than much more.

“This is an absolute catastrophe in the creation,” says UNICEF flowers early. “Desperate disappointed people in the camps will lead to security problems. If it is enhanced to the extent, we will not be able to go to the camp to help.”