"But the 51-year-old's problems ended in 2022, thanks to a program financed by the United States Agency for International Development. USAID paid for her antibiotic treatment and surgery to turn back her eyelashes as part of the agency's effort to fight a group of debilitating conditions known as "neglected tropical diseases," or NTDs, like trachoma. "If this wasn't done on time, I'd be sitting at home as a blind person," she says."
"In January, the Trump administration cut funding to USAID's neglected tropical diseases program. "We were planning to go meet the communities when we heard about the freeze," Tounkara says. Now she's out of work. "I felt totally deceived," she says. Mamadou Coulibaly, who coordinates several NTD elimination programs for Mali's Ministry of Health, felt similarly. "It was like a thunderbolt," he says. "This lack of financing has completely stopped our activities," he says."
Around 2018, Diango Tounkara developed night vision problems that were diagnosed as trachoma, an infectious cause of blindness caused by Chlamydia trachomatis. USAID-funded programs provided antibiotics and surgery that reversed her eyelid damage in 2022. USAID-supported drug distribution and prevention efforts helped Mali eliminate trachoma in 2023 and make progress against lymphatic filariasis and other NTDs. In January, the Trump administration cut funding to USAID's neglected tropical diseases program, freezing activities. The funding cut halted community treatments, suspended elimination campaigns, and cost jobs for local distributors and coordinators, threatening disease resurgence.
Read at www.npr.org
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