HIV can infect 1400 babies every day due to US aid interruptions (19459000)
According to survey data, over one-third of HIV service providers that depended on US funding had closed their doors by the end of February.
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images
New modeling shows that the US cuts in funding for AIDS organisations have resulted in around 1,400 babies being HIV-positive every single day.
A presidential executive order signed on January 20 by President Donald Trump suspended new funding for global health programs. Four days later, US secretary of state Marco Rubio announced a suspension in the assistance provided to foreign countries. These changes, according to surveys, forced over a third (33%) of organizations providing essential HIV services around the world to shut down within a few days.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive people lose access to HIV treatment. The same goes for women and girls who are denied access to services such as cervical cancer screenings and gender-based violence. The waiver Rubio issued later in order to restore vital services had little effect.
Jennifer Sherwood said, “We’re in a serious crisis,” at a data sharing event held on 17 March at Columbia University, New York. Even funds that were already appropriated and that were on the ground, or in bank accounts of people, [were] frozen.”
Rubio granted a waiver on 28 January for humanitarian aid that was “lifesaving”. He said that the resumption was temporary and only limited exceptions would be made to allow for humanitarian programs of life-saving assistance. No new contracts will be signed.
A waiver was granted to the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which annually invests millions in global AIDS responses.
Even with this waiver there are devastating reports about the effect on many health programs in low-income nations that depend on funding from the US Agency for International Development, which manages PEPFAR. AmfAR carried out two surveys to get a sense of how the funding for PEPFAR has affected more than 150 organisations in over 26 countries.
Sherwood presented her findings in Columbia. “We discovered really severe disruptions of HIV services,” Sherwood said. About 90% of participants reported that [the cuts] The ability of these organizations to provide HIV services was severely affected. 94% follow-up services that were designed to track people’s progress had been canceled or interrupted. Services for HIV prevention, testing and treatment were also severely disrupted. 92% of the services related to gender-based abuse were canceled or interrupted.
Sherwood said that the cuts had plunged many organizations into “a deep financial crisis”. Nearly two thirds of the respondents reported that community-based employees were terminated before January’s end. The team asked the organizations to tell them how long they would be able to stay open without US funds. 36% of these groups said that they were already closed. Sherwood said, “Only 14 percent of the organizations said they could stay open for more than one month.” This data has been collected for more than a week.
Tens of thousands people who receive HIV treatment from these organizations will stop it within one month. Sherwood said that for some organizations this figure exceeded 100,000.
Sherwood explained that one of the problems was the fact that this order to stop work came when the organizations already experienced “shortages” in certain commodities. Centers typically give six months’ worth of antiretroviral medications to a patient. Many organizations only gave one month’s supply before the order. “Almost all their clients were due to pick up.” [more] “There are no treatments during this 90-day freezing,” she stated. You can see how panicked people are.
This situation was not improved by the waiver of “life-saving treatment”. The waiver only covered 5% of organizations, and the majority were either told that they did not qualify for the funds or told they couldn’t restart their services. Sherwood says that while the waiver could be an important way to restart certain services, in general, it can’t save the US HIV Program. It is very narrow in scope and hasn’t been communicated widely to the field.
AmfAR’s not the only group that tracks the effects of US funding reductions. Sara Casey (assistant professor at Columbia University, population and family medicine) presented the results of an online survey conducted by 101 employees of organizations that rely on US assistance. The respondents reported disruptions in services related to humanitarian response, gender-based abuse, mental health and infectious diseases as well as essential medicine and vaccines. Casey stated that “many of them should have qualified for a ‘lifesaving’ waiver.”
Casey, along with her colleagues, have interviewed people from Colombia, Kenya and Nepal. She said that in these countries women and newborns, HIV-positive people, LGBTQI+ members, migrants, and those with HIV are the most vulnerable. Health workers are also affected, mainly women.
Sherwood said that the most vulnerable people in the world will suffer disproportionately. According to World Health Organization, women make up 67% the workforce in the healthcare sector. Women also account for 63% of the PEPFAR clientele. PEPFAR supports gender equality, and has services to combat gender-based violence. Sherwood said, “we don’t have any idea if there are other countries and other donors that will support these programs.
Sherwood, along with her colleagues from amfAR, have done modeling to estimate the impact that cuts in PEPFAR could potentially have on women and young girls. They used data collected last year for their estimations. She said that “each day the order to stop work is in effect, we estimate there are 1400 new HIV infection among infants.” Every day, more than 7,000 women will miss the opportunity to get screened for cervical cancer.
Farah Arabice, a member of the Global Mental Health Action Network’s advisory board, stated that the funding cuts had also dramatically affected mental health services. Arabe shared the results of a survey conducted by mental health organizations in 29 countries receiving US aid. She said, “Unfortunately this is an extremely grim picture.” Only 5% of those who received services in the year 2024 can receive them in the next decade.
Children and adolescents are no different. She said that this was a sad situation because the children were going through brain growth. She said that “impacts…at this early stage in life can have a lifelong impact on academic performance, economic productivity and mental and physical health.”
NGOs, aid organizations, and research groups are currently scrambling in order to determine and possibly limit the effects of these cuts. Others are looking for funding sources outside the US.
ThoaiNgo, the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, which hosted the event, said: “I’m deeply concerned about progress being made in disease elimination, poverty reduction and gender equality.” Without urgent action, the number of preventable deaths is likely to increase, people are more likely to fall into poverty and, as usual, it will be women and girls who bear the most burden.
Rubio released the findings of his review of USAID on March 10. He shared the news via social media.
