Mogadishu, Aug. 19 — Diphtheria cases and deaths have risen sharply across Somalia this year, as vaccine shortages and foreign aid cuts hamper the country’s ability to respond, health officials said on Monday.
More than 1,600 cases, including 87 deaths, have been recorded so far in 2025, compared with 838 cases and 56 deaths during all of 2024, according to Hussein Abdukar Muhidin, director-general of Somalia’s National Institute of Health.
Diphtheria, a bacterial infection that causes severe throat swelling, fever, and breathing difficulties, predominantly affects children but is preventable with a vaccine widely available since the mid-20th century. While Somalia has improved childhood immunisation rates in recent years, hundreds of thousands of children remain unvaccinated.
Families Hit Hard
The consequences have been devastating for displaced families. After fleeing fighting between government forces and Islamist militants in Ceeldheere three months ago, Deka Mohamed Ali’s four children — none of them vaccinated — contracted diphtheria.
Her nine-year-old daughter survived, but her eight-year-old son died. Two younger children are now being treated at a hospital in Mogadishu. “My children got sick and I just stayed at home because I did not know it was diphtheria,” Ali told Reuters, sitting beside her three-year-old son Musa, whose throat was swollen to the size of a lemon from the infection.
Shortages and Aid Cuts
Health Minister Ali Haji Adam acknowledged the government’s struggle to secure enough vaccines, citing a global shortage and cuts to U.S. aid as major obstacles.
“The U.S. aid cut terribly affected the health funds it used to provide to Somalia. Many health centres closed. Mobile vaccination teams that took vaccines to remote areas lost funding and now do not work,” Adam said. Muhidin confirmed that closures had severely limited access to care.
Before U.S. President Donald Trump cut most foreign assistance earlier this year, Washington had been Somalia’s largest humanitarian donor. Somalia’s health budget is heavily reliant on external funding.
According to U.S. government data, overall American foreign assistance to Somalia dropped to $149 million in the current fiscal year, compared with $765 million the previous year. A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. continues to provide “lifesaving foreign assistance” and urged other nations to increase their humanitarian support, adding: “America is the most generous nation in the world.”
Wider Impact
Save the Children warned last month that the closure of hundreds of health clinics in Somalia due to donor cuts has contributed to a doubling of combined cases of diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, cholera, and severe respiratory infections since mid-April.
Beyond the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and other Western donors have also scaled back aid budgets, further straining Somalia’s fragile health system.
Meanwhile, the Somali government itself has faced criticism for reducing health sector funding. Amnesty International reported that in 2024 Somalia allocated just 4.8% of its national budget to health, down from 8.5% the previous year. The health ministry has pledged to launch a new vaccination campaign but has not provided a timeline.
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