‘I’m breaching my Hippocratic oath’ – Trump’s foreign aid freeze halts key HIV programmes

In the past 24 hours, various Pepfar-funded health programmes have been issued with “stop work orders”, leaving many patients living with HIV/Aids at risk of being cut off from life-saving care.

29 Jan 2025

Source: Pexels

On Monday, Gauteng-based health worker *Mary woke up to an unprecedented notice from the HIV/Aids organisation where she works – she and her colleagues were not allowed to come in to perform their duties.

She couldn’t even provide telephonic support to patients with appointments that day or the state-employed health workers who would be tackling her workload. This would be considered as work, she was told.

In the 2000s activists across the world campaigned for antiretroviral treatment to be made available to people with HIV. One of the consequences of this was PEPFAR, the United States government’s foreign aid HIV programme. Since 2003 it has saved millions of lives. But now its future is unclear. Photo from the Treatment Action Campaign’s march for HIV treatment in Cape Town on 14 February 2003. (photographer unknown)

Trump’s sudden suspension of foreign aid puts millions of lives in Africa at risk

Liezl Human 23 Jan 2025

Mary is one of many health workers affected by the “stop work orders” issued to various organisations and programmes receiving funding from the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar). Their work has been brought to a screeching halt as a result of US President Donald Trump’s executive order – signed on Monday, 20 January – suspending all foreign development assistance for 90 days, pending a review to determine whether they are “fully aligned” with US foreign policy.

Read the full article on Daily Maverick here.

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