# US aid cuts strain African healthcare systems

> A new report warns that America's withdrawal from global health programs is forcing African countries to urgently restructure their finances and take control of their own health futures.
- Title: US aid cuts strain African healthcare systems · the Guardian
- Summary: A new report warns that America's withdrawal from global health programs is forcing African countries to urgently restructure their finances and take control…
- Keywords: usaid, africa, healthcare, global health, accra reset, john dramani mahama, ghana, trump administration, foreign aid, hiv aids, news, world
- Source: the Guardian — https://theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/21/africa-healthcare-aid-program-withdrawl
- Published: 2026-09-21T22:33:40+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: usaid, africa, healthcare, global health, accra reset, john dramani mahama, ghana, trump administration, foreign aid, hiv aids, news, world
## US aid cuts strain African health
The United States' withdrawal from key aid programs has put healthcare in Africa and the global south under growing strain, according to a new report by the Accra Reset.
## What triggered the crisis
The Trump administration's cuts to the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, combined with the Covid-nineteen pandemic and rising costs of living globally, have brought new urgency to healthcare reform in the region.
## Africa's vaccine production gap
Ghana's president John Dramani Mahama and the Accra Reset cite a key statistic: Africa produces less than one percent of its vaccines while carrying about twenty-five percent of the global disease burden.
## Nigeria absorbs health workers
When the Trump administration dissolved USAID, Nigeria was forced to absorb twenty-eight thousand health workers previously employed by the agency at a cost of two hundred million dollars.
## Dramatic funding collapse
External financing for health in Africa contracted by close to seventy percent between twenty twenty-one and twenty twenty-five, forcing African countries historically dependent on aid to adapt quickly to severe budget shortfalls.
## South Africa's HIV crisis
The withdrawal of US Emergency Plan for Aids Relief funding for South Africa, which provided over four hundred million dollars annually, led to HIV clinics closing and left one point four million people living with HIV facing uncertainty about treatment.
## Ghana's specific losses
At the World Health Assembly in May, Mahama said Ghana lost seventy-eight million dollars after the closure of USAID programs which affected maternal healthcare, the treatment of malaria, nutrition and HIV and Aids interventions.
## A call for African leadership
Mahama argues that donor dependency is not sustainable and calls for countries to take greater ownership of their health futures. The Accra Reset's latest report, published on Monday, pushes for African-led solutions with reformed international support.

> The Accra Reset is not an argument for traditional donors to do less on global health. It is an argument for doing it differently and doing it better.
## Key takeaway

US withdrawal from aid programs including USAID has put African healthcare under strain, forcing countries to absorb costs and restructure finances while a new initiative pushes for greater African control of health systems.