Today, USAID Deputy Administrator Isobel Coleman met with Dr. Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe. They discussed the United States’ and the WHO’s coordinated response to support Ukraine and the country’s health system recovery, and shared that USAID will provide an additional $1.8 million in funding to WHO to strengthen infectious disease surveillance and reporting in Ukraine. With this additional support, USAID has now provided $15.5 million to WHO for critical health support since Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine began.
The Deputy Administrator expressed appreciation for WHO’s rapid increase of humanitarian health response in Ukraine, both through WHO’s support of Ukraine’s health cluster and its work to meet immediate needs in terms of essential health care services, medicines, and supplies. Ukraine’s designated health cluster, currently the largest in the world, serves to better coordinate, reduce gaps, and minimize duplicative efforts among donors and humanitarian organizations delivering health assistance in Ukraine. Deputy Administrator Coleman relayed USAID’s support for the First Lady of Ukraine’s Mental Health Initiative and interest in working with WHO to respond to the growing mental health burden in Ukraine caused by Russia’s continued unprovoked war.
The two also discussed the monkeypox outbreak, including the WHO’s recent declaration of monkeypox as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and exchanged updates on HIV/AIDS and Polio eradication.