‘Devastating’: Trump Administration Stops Distribution of HIV Medications in Poor Countries
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
The administration of President Donald Trump has ordered a halt to the distribution of HIV medications purchased with aid from the U.S., according to The New York Times.
That includes drugs that are already in local clinics and ready to be administered to HIV-positive patients.
The Times reported on Monday that the order is part of a larger moratorium on foreign aid. Last week, the Trump administration put a freeze of at least 90 days on funds that purchase most HIV treatments in Africa. Most notably affected is the $7.5 billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which is administered by the Department of State.
On Monday, the Times said the administration’s freeze on the distribution of drugs that have already been purchased has stunned global health experts.
Jirair Ratevosian, who served as PEPFAR chief of staff under former President Joe Biden, called the halting of drug distribution, “devastating.”
“This is another domino in the devastating impact of the harmful freeze to programs, leaving lives hanging in the balance,” he told the Times.
The Times cited a study that concluded that if PEPFAR were to be abolished, as many as 600,000 people in South Africa alone would die over the next 10 years.
“The partners we collaborate with are in shock, and they do not know what to do because their lifesaving mission and commitment has been breached,” Asia Russell, executive director of the advocacy group Health Gap, told the Times.
The move comes on the heels of another health-related Trump directive in which the administration told the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop communicating with the World Health Organization.
Last week, Trump ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the WHO because of the “organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”
