US Agency for International Development

US Agency for International Development

• USAID is spearheading U.S. efforts to provide mass integrated treatment of tropical neglected diseases including trachoma and onchocerciasis in East and West Africa to be underway in 2007 in cooperation with drug donations from pharmaceutical companies.

• USAID provided support for a Hib vaccine trial in The Gambia, involving more than 40,000 infants. The trial's dramatic results led to the introduction of the vaccine to the national immunization program in 1997, and the virtual elimination of the disease from the country.
• USAID has provided financial assistance to the Bangladesh family planning program. Fertility decreased from more than six children per woman in 1975 to about three in 2004 -- a decline that exceeded the pace of change in most other countries at Bangladesh's economic level.
• USAID has provided technical support and $26 million in financial assistance to Egypt's National Control of Diarrheal Disease Project. Infant diarrheal deaths were reduced by 82 percent between 1982 and 1987, and the program contributed to the prevention of 300,000 child diarrheal deaths between 1982 and 1989.
• In collaboration with the Carter Center and twelve other countries, USAID provided financial support for the guinea worm eradication programs in Africa and Asia. Since the start of the campaign in 1986, disease prevalence has dropped 99 percent and the number of cases has fallen from 3.5 million to less than 35,000.
• Through their participation in the Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee, USAID contributed financial support to the regional initiative that eradicated polio in Latin America in 1991.
• USAID was the largest donor in the 28-year Onchocerciasis Control Program in west Africa. USAID contributed $75 million to the successful program, which virtually eliminated the disease as a public health threat in west Africa and made 25 million hectares of arable land - enough to feed an additional 17 million people - safe for resettlement.
• USAID was the largest donor to the global smallpox eradication. Between 1967 and 1979, the US contributed just under $25 million, or approximately 40% of total donor contributions. The majority of the US’s assistance went towards eradicating smallpox in central and west Africa. Smallpox was eradicated in 1977.