The Epidemiology and Disease Control Division said that its planned “outbreak investigation training” for doctors will not take place this year after USAID, Nepal’s leading development partner, informed officials that it could no longer provide funding for the programme.

Officials say USAID had committed Rs6 million for the three-month programme, which was planned for the centre and all seven provinces.

“We have been informed that USAID-funded programmes have been halted for three months,” said Dr Yadu Chandra Ghimire, director of the division. “Outbreak investigation training for doctors is among the crucial programmes that have been affected by the new US government’s decision to suspend all foreign aid.”

On Friday, the US State Department announced the suspension of nearly all foreign assistance worldwide for 90 days, with immediate effect. Public health experts say that several healthcare programmes, including outbreak investigation training, some schemes for non-communicable diseases, and a planned micronutrient survey, which was being conducted after 10 years, have been halted due to the latest US decision.

Likewise, the fate of the demographic health survey has become uncertain, and surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases will also be suspended for now.

Various programmes run with assistance from UN agencies, including the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, and Global Alliance for Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), among others, could also be affected by the US decision, according to officials.

Ghimire said outbreak investigation training helps doctors identify the causes of outbreaks, assess their severity, and take measures to prevent the spread and spillover of deadly diseases. The course of a disease’s spread depends on how quickly an outbreak is detected and how effectively containment measures are taken.

Available resources can be used more efficiently if the seriousness of diseases is identified in time and this makes training for health officials crucial, according to experts.

Training health workers would also help various government agencies and development partners coordinate their responses to new health emergencies, according to Ghimire.

Officials at the division said they had also planned to hold interactive sessions with cancer survivor children and their parents with the funds provided by USAID in the ongoing fiscal year. However, this has also been halted due to the aid suspension.

“We have not been able to hold such interactions,” said Dr Pomawati Thapa, chief of the Mental Health Section at the division. “We had hoped this programme would help us understand the problems faced by cancer survivor children and their parents, but unfortunately, it has been halted.”

Officials at the Ministry of Health and Population said that the aid suspension has affected health programmes under government-to-government (G2G) agreements, through which the US government provides $5 million a year.

The US had pledged $25 million in budgetary support over five years in the health sector.