• World
  • Jan 29

Trump admin pauses funding for WHO’s HIV programmes

• The Trump administration ordered a pause for funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

• The World Health Organisation (WHO) expressed deep concern about the implications of the immediate funding pause for HIV programmes in low and middle-income countries. 

• These programmes provide access to life-saving HIV therapy to more than 30 million people worldwide. 

• Globally, 39.9 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2023.

The impact of PEPFAR

• The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), launched in 2003, is the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history.

• Since its inception, PEPFAR has invested over $100 billion in the global HIV/AIDS response.

• It has been a flagship initiative of the global HIV response.

• PEPFAR works in over 50 countries around the world. Over the past two decades, PEPFAR funding has saved more than 26 million lives. 

• Currently, PEPFAR is providing HIV treatment for more than 20 million people living with HIV globally, including 566,000 children under 15 years of age.

• Over the past year, PEPFAR and partners, including WHO, have been working on sustainability plans with countries for greater country ownership and reduced donor support up to and beyond 2030. 

• A sudden and prolonged stop to programmes does not allow for a managed transition and puts the lives of millions at risk.

• The current funding pause for PEPFAR will have a direct impact on millions of lives that depend on the predictable supply of safe and effective antiretroviral treatment.

• It can put people living with HIV at immediate increased risk of illness and death and undermine efforts to prevent transmission in communities and countries. 

• Such measures, if prolonged, could lead to rises in new infections and deaths, reversing decades of progress and potentially taking the world back to the 1980s and 1990s when millions died of HIV every year globally, including many in the United States.

• For the global community, this could result in significant setbacks to progress in partnerships and investments in scientific advances that have been the cornerstone of good public health programming, including innovative diagnostics, affordable medicines, and community delivery models of HIV care.

One of the deadliest pandemics of modern times 

• Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is an infection that attacks the body’s immune system, specifically the white blood cells called CD4 cells. HIV destroys these CD4 cells, weakening a person’s immunity against infections.

• If the person’s CD4 cell count falls below 200, their immunity is severely compromised, leaving them more susceptible to infections. 

• The most advanced stage of HIV infection is acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which can take many years to develop if not treated, depending on the individual.

• HIV remains a major global public health issue, having claimed an estimated 42.3 million lives to date.

Transmission and symptoms

• HIV can be transmitted via the exchange of a variety of body fluids from infected people, such as blood, breast milk, semen and vaginal secretions. HIV can also be transmitted from a mother to her child during pregnancy and delivery. Individuals cannot become infected through ordinary day-to-day contact such as kissing, hugging, shaking hands, or sharing personal objects, food or water. 

• The symptoms of HIV vary depending on the stage of infection. Though people living with HIV tend to be most infectious in the first few months after being infected, many are unaware of their status until the later stages.

• As the infection progressively weakens the immune system, they can develop other signs and symptoms, such as swollen lymph nodes, weight loss, fever, diarrhoea and cough. Without treatment, they could also develop severe illnesses such as tuberculosis (TB), cryptococcal meningitis, severe bacterial infections, and cancers such as lymphomas and Kaposi’s sarcoma.

• There is no cure for HIV infection. It is treated with antiretroviral drugs, which stop the virus from replicating in the body.

• Current antiretroviral therapy (ART) does not cure HIV infection but allows a person’s immune system to get stronger. This helps them to fight other infections.

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