JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Health-funding cuts are wreaking havoc on many African countries’ ability to gain control diseases such as cholera, according to the continent’s main health-advisory body.

Financial aid provided by governments of wealthier countries to developing nations to improve health outcomes had already dropped by about 70% between 2021 and 2025, Ngashi Ngongo, a principal adviser at Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing Thursday.

“We moved from $81 billion to about $25 billion” in the previous four years and with President Donald Trump’s recent decisions to halt much U.S. funding, it’s now “much lower than that,” he said, without giving the most recent tally. “Countries have to make very, very difficult decisions in the context of concurrent multiple outbreaks.”

Cholera, which has topped the list of the five biggest outbreaks in Africa this year, has caused thousands of deaths from about 158,000 suspected cases. Africa, which is also contending with mpox, measles, dengue and Lassa fever, accounts for 94% of all cholera deaths.

The bacterial disease doesn’t have to be a death sentence — most people can be successfully treated for the severe dehydration that comes from vomiting and diarrhea through prompt administration of an oral-rehydration solution. But the illness that disproportionately affects children is harder to treat in communities that have low pre-existing immunity due to limited vaccination rates and poor general health.

There are three oral cholera vaccine-manufacturing projects in various stages of completion in Africa, but they need $150 million in financing and secured demand from governments, Africa CDC has said.

The bulk of cases and deaths are in the neighboring countries of Angola, Congo, Sudan and South Sudan. This shows spillover of cases from one nation to another and reflects of many years of underinvestment in sanitation infrastructure. The proportion of schools that have no hand-washing facilities ranges from 57% in Sudan to as much as 90% in South Sudan. Conflict and the related increase in population movement adds to this risk.

_____

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.