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World Health Organization (WHO) Officials announced at a press conference on Monday that several countries that rely on aid from the United States in order to fund their HIV medication programs are now running out of the life-saving treatments.
Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, and Ukraine could run out of HIV meds in the coming months, according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "Disruptions to HIV programs could undo 20 years of progress," he said, while estimating this could cause as many as 10 million additional HIV cases and three million HIV-related deaths.
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HIV medication not only helps people with HIV live healthier lives by stopping the virus’s replication process, it also stops the spread of HIV. People who are on successful HIV treatment can become “undetectable” meaning that the amount of virus in their blood is so low that it cannot be transmitted to another person.
During the conference, Ghebreyesus called on the Trump administration to rethink its pulling of federal funding for international aid. He added that a withdrawal of funding, if done, should be done more responsibly and with an infrastructure for something to replace it.
“The U.S. administration has been extremely generous over many years. And of course, it’s within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent,” Tedros said on Monday, per STAT. “But the U.S. also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it’s done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources of funding.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a freeze on all foreign aid shortly after his appointment into the position as part of what he billed as a “government-wide comprehensive review of all foreign assistance.” That aid included funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a federal program that provides HIV medication for people around the world and which has been credited with saving millions of lives.
Shortly after Rubio suspended PEPFAR, agencies that had medication were no longer allowed to distribute it. However, on January 29, Rubio added a waiver to the freeze saying that “life-saving humanitarian assistance” could be distributed, which allowed for some medication to be given to people living with HIV.
In the wake of the freeze, UNAIDS deputy executive director estimated that AIDS-related deaths could increase by as much as 400% as a result of the administration’s decision.
Efforts to curb other illnesses, including measles and malaria, are also feeling the effects of the freeze. The cuts stopped the rollout of a malaria vaccine, as well as vaccinations against measles.
“We are on the brink of a crisis,” Handaa Enkh-Amgalan, a member of the WHO Civil Society Task Force on Tuberculosis, told STAT in regards to global disease control efforts. She added that the crisis could “reverberate across borders and generations if we don’t act decisively,” Tedros added that the lack of funding has disrupted the supply of malaria control programs, including the ability to pay for or receive diagnostic tools, medicine, and malaria nets. The result is “reversing 15 years of progress,” he said.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported that billionaire Bill Gates has been pressuring the Trump administration, as well as Republicans and Democrats, to restore funding for global health initiatives, including vaccination and HIV treatment. Gates reportedly told government officials that his philanthropic foundation, The Gates Foundation, cannot fill in the gaps created by the U.S. pulling its money out of foreign aid.
While the State Department did cut funding for HIV treatment as well as HIV prevention tools, such as PrEP, a February 6 memo said that the preventative regimen “should be offered only to pregnant and breastfeeding women,” while anyone else, “who may be at high risk of HIV infection or were previously initiated on a PrEP option can not be offered PEPFAR-funded PrEP” (emphases in original) while PEPFAR is frozen.
There remains no official public list of which contracts have been canceled, according to the Guardian.
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