After two decades, the U.S. will end a life-saving HIV-prevention and treatment program in South Africa, a country where over 8 million people live with the virus (about 12% of its population). The Trump administration said it is stopping the funding because South Africa hasn’t done enough to meet the U.S. president’s policy requests, including stopping a non-existent anti-white “genocide.” The head of the United Nation’s HIV agency has warned that the end of U.S. funding will cost lives.
The U.S. State Department said the country will be removed from President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) because it failed “to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration,” The New York Times reported. South Africa receives $400 million annually from PEPFAR, making up around 17% of its annual HIV response funding.
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The current U.S. administration has previously called on the country to repeal its laws allowing the government to seize private land without compensation and to exempt American companies from Black empowerment laws (meant to address economic disparities caused by state-wide apartheid). The administration as also asked the country not to align with U.S. foreign enemy countries like Iran.
Trump has also previously criticized the country’s anti-genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice and accused South Africa of fostering an anti-white “genocide,” though the government, human rights organizations, and independent analysts have said there’s no evidence to support the president’s accusation, PBS reported.
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While South Africa received about $456 million in U.S. HIV/AIDS funding in 2024, it dropped to $213 million last year, partly due to the president’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Last year, South Africa announced a $45 million emergency fund to make up the funding gap.
Though the PEPFAR funding didn’t purchase HIV medications, last year its funding helped support over 15,000 nurses, counselors and pharmacists, and also HIV testing, prevention campaigns, treatment, monitoring, and community outreach programs through health clinics in 27 districts with the highest HIV prevalence rates, according to Foster Mohale, a spokesperson with the South African National Department of Health.
Dr. Kate Rees, public health medicine specialist at the Anova Health Institute (a non-governmental organization), said the cuts will impact children, adolescents and young people as well as the most at-risk populations, including men who have sex with men.
Though the official funding freeze hasn’t reached South Africa yet, Mohale said the ending of PEPFAR support isn’t entirely surprising since the cancellation of USAID financial assistance last year. Current funding is expected to run out in September, the Associated Press reported.
UNAids chief Winnie Byanyima urged the US to consider a “planned transition” rather than a sudden end to all funding, which would risk reversing progress the country has made in its fight against HIV.
“Please do not take money away because you are taking lives away,” Byanyima said, according to the BBC.
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