Suggested lead: Access to vaccination is vital in the fight against infectious diseases, particularly those affecting young children. In Somalia, the health system, is under increasing strain, after the Trump administration announced funding cuts, affecting everything from the availability of vaccines to the funding of the staff and equipment required to get it to the people. As a result diseases like measles and diphtheria are emerging. After over decades of conflict, this comes as another blow to ordinary people in Somalia.

Lower thirds:

0:03  Report by / Sella Oneko
0:34  Deqa Mohammed / Mother
1:12  Aulrasaq Yusuf Ahmed / Director, Demartino Public Hospital 
1:43  Ali Haji Adam / Health Minister, Somalia

This hospital ward in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu is full of diptheria patients. Doctors are increasingly worried about the spread of this airborne disease. Its symptoms are evident in this ward ... children with swollen necks and breathing problems. Diptheria is usually preventable through early childhood vaccination, but if left untreated, it can be fatal.

Deqa Mohammed, who fled fighting between government forces and islamist militants in central Somalia, has already lost one of her four children:

00:33-00:46
SOT Deqa Mohammed, Mother: 
Lost one child to diphteria (Somali / Female) “Diphtheria claimed the life of one of my children, and another fell ill but fortunately recovered. Now, I'm in the hospital with my two other children who have contracted diphtheria."

00:47
According to the international NGO, Save the Children, cases of infectious diseases like measles and diphtheria have doubled between April and July this year. And aid cuts by the US have led to fewer medical services and a collapse in mobile vaccination programs.

The hospital director here says they lack both antibiotics and other medicines to the disease.

01:11-01:31

SOT Aulrasaq Yusuf Ahmed: Director, Demartino Public Hospital (Somali / male): 

“The current rate of infection is very high. According to Somalia’s epidemiological trends, it shows that there is an outbreak of diphtheria in the last two months in fifty districts of the country. Our hospital alone registered diphtheria patients from 49 districts.”

01:33
With ongoing fighting in several parts of Somalia, getting medical care to people outside the main urban centers is difficult as it is.

01:42
SOT Ali Haji Adam: Health Minister, Somalia (Somali / male): 

“Somalia’s health financing has for a long time depended on donors. The USAID cut affected the health funds terribly. They used to help Somalia. Many health centres were closed and mobile vaccination teams that went to remote areas were also cut and no longer function. This has affected our vaccination capacity.”

02:17
Somalia’s health minister says they’re hoping to roll out a countrywide vaccination campaign. But with the US, its main donor, cutting aid down to 19 percent of what it was last year, Somalia’s youngest citizens might continue bearing the brunt.