COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- On July 22, U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) to Sri Lanka and Maldives Martin Kelly handed over Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to support frontline responders to H.E. Omar Razak, Maldivian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka. The PPE donation, worth $150,000, is representative of the United States’ “All of America” approach to combating COVID-19 worldwide. With funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, this is the third donation of PPE to Maldives and the second in the past month – an initiative designed to bolster partner nation’s pandemic response efforts.

“The United States is proud to provide protection for Maldivian healthcare workers as they care for Maldivians suffering from COVID-19,” said DCM Kelly. “This equipment will help prevent the spread of the virus and keep our frontline responders safe.”

In addition to PPE, the United States is funding a $2 million tailored package of support for Maldives that includes helping civil society expand COVID-19-related social protection services, advocate effectively for COVID recovery policies, and provide technical assistance to the government to develop effective economic measures in response to the pandemic.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the U.S. government has announced more than $1.2 billion in State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) emergency health, humanitarian, economic, and development assistance specifically aimed at helping governments, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) fight the pandemic.

The United States has been the world’s largest provider of bilateral assistance in health. Since 2009, the American people have generously funded more than $100 billion in health assistance and nearly $70 billion in humanitarian assistance worldwide.