No more aid related to HIV from the US under the administration of convicted felon Donald Trump.
The administration of the reelected American president, a former TV personality, released an order to the US Department of State to immediately suspend all foreign assistance, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This is consistent with Trump’s Executive Order issued on January 20, which require a pause on further obligations and disbursements of foreign assistance funds for 90 days.
The cable specifically orders:
Effective immediately, Assistant Secretaries and Senior Bureau Officials shall ensure that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance until such time as the Secretary shall determine, following a review. For existing foreign assistance awards, contracting officers and grant officers shall immediately issue stop-work orders, consistent with the terms of the relevant award, until such time as the Secretary shall determine, following a review. Decisions whether to continue, modify, or terminate programs will be made following this review.
Highlighting America’s preoccupation with wars, the only programmatic exemptions provided in the Trump order were: emergency food assistance and military financing for Israel and Egypt.
In a statement, amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research – a nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of AIDS research, HIV prevention, treatment education, and advocacy – said that “if implemented for the PEPFAR, it would halt life-saving treatment even if lifted relatively quickly.”
The PEPFAR program operates in 54 countries, primarily in Africa, to provide life-saving daily services for people living with HIV. According to PEPFAR’s Human Resources for Health data, there are over 190,000 full time equivalent clinical and ancillary care providers providing core health care services every day, including: 1,422 doctors; 7,142 clinical officers; 13,577 nurses, auxiliary nurses and nursing assistants; 1,000 midwives; 5,044 phlebotomists and laboratory technicians, 1,881 pharmacists, and more than 108,000 community health workers. On average, these health care workers make just over $3,000 per year, making even short funding suspensions extremely difficult.
“A stop work order immediately removes these individuals from providing daily services. Hundreds of thousands of people will immediately be unable to access effective and life-saving HIV treatment and other services,” added amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.
Globally, on a daily basis, PEPFAR is responsible for supporting:
- More than 222,000 people on treatment in the program collecting ARVs to stay healthy;
- More than 224,000 HIV tests, newly diagnosing 4,374 people with HIV – 10% of whom are pregnant women attending antenatal clinic visits;
- Services for 17,695 orphans and vulnerable children impacted by HIV;
- 7,163 cervical cancer screenings, newly diagnosing 363 women with cervical cancer or pre-cancerous lesions, and treating 324 women with positive cervical cancer results;
- Care and support for 3,618 women experiencing gender-based violence, including 779 women who experienced sexual violence.
“Additionally, PEPFAR provides critical technical and infrastructure support for pharmaceutical supply chains, laboratory systems, data systems, and other technical support,” stated amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.
In fact, country governments already invest substantially in their own HIV responses, but “the immediate stop work orders to the more than 190,000 clinicians and other health care workers will massively disrupt the global HIV response. Even short cessations of these programs cause unnecessary suffering, loss to follow-up, and risk onward transmission that cannot simply be ‘turned back on’ when the suspension is lifted,” stated amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.
The NGO, therefore, calls for Trump to instead “ensure seamless continuation of services by immediately providing a waiver to the stop work order and the 90-day suspension of services for the PEPFAR program.”
As FYI: In the Philippines, at least one NGO – Mujer-LGBT Organization – already lamented the impact of the removal of the funding. One of its projects, which teaches about human rights to grassroots communities in Mindanao, south of the Philippines, was suspended, pending reevaluation of US foreign aid programs.
