Trump Administration Retreats From Global HIV Reduction Efforts

The New York Times (6/25, Nolen) reports that a “breakthrough preventive drug, lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection that offers total protection from H.I.V.,” was set to be “rapidly rolled out across eastern and southern Africa.” However, this and similar efforts have “been derailed by the Trump administration’s slashing of foreign assistance.” Now, HIV “programs across Africa are scrambling to procure drugs that the United States once supplied, replace lost nurses and lab technicians, and restart shuttered programs to prevent new infections.” Experts fear that HIV “infection rates are rising in the hardest-hit countries, but there is no clear way to measure the damage because data collection was mostly reliant on the terminated U.S. funding. Stocks of prevention drugs once supplied by the U.S. are running out across Africa.” Still, there is “widespread hope in African countries that the Gates Foundation may step in to cover the lost U.S. government funding for the purchase” of lenacapavir doses.