Funding Bill Brieger | 18 Mar 2013 02:14 pm
Death by Sequestration
Across the board cuts in US funding for almost everything government does (except the salaries of members of Congress!), will have effects on people’s lives. Damage from sequestration is reported daily. Even civil rights are threatened as reported in the Washington Post in a story that highlights the plight of poor people who must remain jailed because funds for public defenders have been cut and there are not enough lawyers to ensure a speedy trial.
amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, has been tracking the potential effects of the sequester on global health programs of the US Government. amfAR has made estimates based Congress’ action in January 2013, and reported that, “The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has calculated that, as of March 1, 2013, funding for non-defense discretionary programs must be cut across the board by 5.0 percent.1 Â As we found in our earlier calculations, applying sequestration cuts to US government global health programming will have minimal impact on deficit reduction, but will be devastating to the lives of many thousands of people globally.”
Here are the specifics on malaria programs:
- 1.16 million fewer insecticide-treated mosquito nets will be procured …
- leading to over 3,000 deaths due to malaria
- 1.9 million fewer people will receive treatment
InterAction and Global Communities have produced an informational graphic that summarizes the impact on disease control, nutrition and education (see malaria section to right). This comes as part of a general leveling and possible downturn in malaria funding over the past few years. It will be hard to sustain the scale-up in malaria interventions that has been achieved since the United Nations called for universal coverage in 2009.
Most of the decision makers who vote on funds to curb global disease scourges will not likely ever see a case of malaria, much less experience one. Hopefully this does not mean that they will be immune to advocacy to prevent needless deaths from malaria and other causes of maternal and child mortality.