More than 80 Ugandan health professionals, among them laboratory experts, field officers and managers, have been rendered jobless after the US government in an expression of its displeasure over an Anti-Homosexuality law suspended financing for a project employing them.
The 87 employees had just been re-hired last month on HIV-related programmes, Ugandan health ministry permanent secretary Asuman Lukwago said on Wednesday.
Statistics on people receiving HIV care under the suspended project were unavailable at the time of publishing, but officials warned of likely stock-out of reagents and equipment for laboratory diagnostics.
“The (cooperative financing) agreement is on hold. We don’t know how long this (suspension) will take, but negotiations are ongoing,” Dr Lukwago said.
The decision to freeze the financing was “abrupt”, he said, and the Ugandan government needs to act quickly to pad the financing gap.
Dr Joshua Musinguzi, the manager for HIV/Aids programmes in the Health ministry, Wednesday said the freeze would only affect human resource, and not other US-funded interventions such as ARV drugs.
The Citizen
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