US Signs Health MOU with Burundi, Chooses Hungary as Religious Partner
Health Systems 11/02/2026 •
The US and Burundi signed a health MOU on 6 February.

Burundi has become the 16th African country to sign a five-year bilateral health Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the United States.

The US “intends to provide more than $129 million of health assistance in Burundi for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and infectious disease surveillance, response, and preparation”, according to a statement from the US State Department.  

In return, Burundi has pledged to increase domestic health expenditures by $26 million, to assume greater financial responsibility for its citizens’ healthcare.

US support will include support for “surveillance and outbreak responses, laboratory commodities, frontline health care workers, and data systems”. 

It will also “continue to improve access to malaria prevention, diagnostic tests and treatments, as well as HIV rapid diagnostic tests and antiretroviral HIV treatment regimens”.

As with the other 15 MOUs, Burundi has agreed to share “information and data” about infectious disease outbreaks with epidemic or pandemic potential, according to the US State Department.

The pace of signings has slowed after a flurry of MOUs the US signed late last year under its “America First Global Health Strategy”.

However, the health MOUs have given way to a flurry of US trade agreements, focusing on critical and rare earth minerals – with at least 21 MOUs related to minerals being signed in the past five months, including 11 signed last week alone alongside a Ministerial meeting on critical minerals, according to the US State Department.

The US has also chosen Hungary as its partner in advancing religious freedom in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

An MOU between the two countries was signed last week between US Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael Rigas and Hungary’s Tristan Azbej, State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps Program. It aims to “facilitate cooperation in supporting Christians and people of faith facing persecution, particularly in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.”

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