The uncertainty around the Trump administration's sweeping funding freeze is also alarming many in the world of global health,

since it could affect key programs overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID.

Late today, the State Department issued a waiver on its pause of foreign assistance in some circumstances,

including for, quote,

life-saving medicine and medical services. But the waiver explicitly excludes activities that involve abortions, gender, or DEI programs. And there's still some concern about how the

freeze will affect other programs. For more, we turn now to Dr. Atoll Gawande, who oversaw these programs as

assistant administrator for global health at USAID during the Biden administration. Thanks for being

with us. Glad to be here. So as we said, you managed these global health initiatives for USAID until just a few

weeks ago. You had a $10 billion yearly budget, as I understand it,

more than 2,000 staff in over 65 countries. There was this stop work order that was just met

this evening with a waiver which suggests the Trump administration is now rethinking their approach.

As best as you can gauge it, what's the impact at this point?

Well, I hope they are rethinking. The stop work

order came in with the president's signings of an executive order on January 20 a week ago,

and already we've seen the shutdown of major programs. I'm talking about, you know, the systems for the global HIV program

aiming to end HIV. It's called PetFAR. Their central information systems were turned off

yesterday. The distribution of drugs were ordered to stop, and that affects 20 million people

who require access to those drugs for staying alive.

But the waiver hopefully opens the door for that work to resume.

But we don't know, and it's been disruptive on several other fronts.

The waiver does not seem to include programs, for example, that would eradicate polio, that are stopping neglected

tropical diseases that are nearly eliminated, like river blindness. And then there is unclarity in a lot of spaces, including around outbreaks.

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