Former USAID head warns disease outbreaks could grow after cuts to agency
The former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) says major funding cuts to the agency could lead to more cases of diseases like paralytic polio and malaria.ย In an interview airing Sunday on CBC'sย Rosemary Barton Live, Samantha Power described the consequences of the Trump administration's decision to gut the agency's funding."There's really no words," Power, who was the head of the agency during the Biden administration,ย told chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton."The estimates are now 200,000 more cases of paralytic polio," she said of the impact of the administration's cancelled USAID contracts."Malaria increases, probably as many as 166,000 deaths per year."Power hugs a person after laid-off USAID workers cleared out their desks and collected pe...