For the inhabitants of remote South African villages, accessing medication is a challenge. HIV patients like 19-year-old Nozuko Majola must travel over an hour to receive the vital antiretroviral medication they need. However, this wasn’t always the case.
“We used to get the drugs delivered to our homes, but since Donald Trump announced he was cutting aid, the drugs have stopped coming. I’m worried that this service will be canceled altogether,” Majola told DW.
She is one of an estimated 8 million people living with HIV in South Africa, a country with one of the highest rates of HIV in the world. Another HIV patient, Nozuko Ngaweni, who has been taking antiretroviral medications for decades, now fears for her life.
“When I heard that the US had canceled its aid, I felt like I was dying,” she said. “I asked myself: ‘Will I get medication next month? I have medication for this month, but what comes after?'”
The US has donated to South Africa’s health sector for many decades, primarily to combat HIV/AIDS. In 2023, the US gave the country $400 million (€352 million) in funding.
The US funding cuts to South Africa’s HIV/AIDS programs could lead to over 500,000 deaths over the next decade, according to the head of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, Linda-Gail Bekker. After taking office, President Trump issued an executive order that paused foreign aid assistance for 90 days. The review ended with the decision to dismantle USAID as an independent agency. The administration slashed 90% of foreign contracts and grants funded by the US aid agency.
Such funding cuts have been a blow to many African countries. Sub-Saharan Africa is the second-largest recipient of USAID funding worldwide, receiving $12.7 billion (€11.2 billion) in 2024. Up to 4 million additional people could now die from treatable diseases in Africa as a result of the loss of US funding, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
The cut in funding related to the fight against HIV/AIDS is particularly dramatic. The US is no longer funding UNAIDS, the UN’s HIV/AIDS funding program that goes to communities around the globe. Some have called the US cuts in aid the biggest blow to the global effort to fight the disease.
Source: https://www.dw.com/en/how-hard-are-usaid-cuts-hitting-africa/a-72464620?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
