South African experts worry with the start of discounts in the treatment of HIV

Gogo used to collect antivirus from the US Agency for International Development Agency in central Johannesburg.

But when President Trump’s discounts were announced to help funding earlier this year, she and thousands of patients with HIV around South Africa suddenly faced an uncertain future.

Gogo was fortunate, the clinic, where she got the medicine that helps suppress her symptoms that she called before closing.

“I was one of the people who managed to get their medications in large quantities. I usually collect a three -month prescription. But before I closed my clinic, they gave me medicines for nine months.”

It will run out of ARVS in September, then plans to go to her local public hospital for more information.

A former sexual worker, 54, discovered that she was positive for HIV after she left this industry.

Ten years ago I got a Chesty cough, and I initially thought it was tuberculosis. She went to the doctor who told her that she had a chest infection and treated her for it.

But when treatment failed, I went to a clinic for HIV test.

“By that time, I already assumed that I had HIV, and I told the nurse.”

She was right, and she was on arvs since then. We do not use her real name at her request.

Currently it works as a project coordinator for a non -governmental organization.

“We are helping pregnant sex workers to get their Arvs, to ensure the birth of their children, the HIV negative. We also make home visits to make sure that mothers are taking their medicines on time, and let us care for their children when they go to their monthly examinations.”

Many sexes with HIV in South Africa have relied on the private clinics funded by the Relief Agency now that the United States government has now ended with the US Agency for International Development, to obtain their recipes and treatments.

But most facilities were closed after US President Donald Trump reduced most of the foreign aid earlier this year.

GUGU believes that many sex workers can be inhibited by going to public hospitals for their own appliances if they can no longer get them from clinics.

“The problem of going to public hospitals is the timeline. In order to obtain its service in these facilities, it must reach 4 or 5 am, and they may spend all day waiting for their drugs. For sex workers, the time is money.”

She adds that she recently went to her local hospital with some friends to record her details and build a relationship with employees.

“The nurse who came to us was very rude. She told us that there is nothing special about sexual workers.”

It believes that this can lead to the inability of many sex workers on their medications, “especially since their hospital files contain a lot of personal information, and anxiety is that nurses in these local clinics sometimes are not always the most sensitive in dealing with this type of information.”

In a report issued on Thursday, the United Nations responsible for combating HIV/AIDS is not unique from the United States, but it says that the severe cuts from a number of donors have sent shock waves all over the world, that, The “tremendous progress” in treating the risk of the disease that is reflected.

“The new HIV infections have been reduced by 40 % since 2010, and 4.4 million children have been protected from obtaining HIV since 2000. More than 26 million people have been rescued,” warning that if the world does not behave, there may be six million additional infections in the HIV and four million deaths associated with aid by 2029.

UNAIDS said that before the financing discounts, the annual numbers of HIV infection and AIDS -related deaths have sank to their lowest levels in more than 30 years.

All data published in the report is by the United States and other donors reduced funding earlier this year. But it highlights the amount of progress that can be lost as a result of these cuts.

Sub -Saharan Africa has seen a 56 % decrease in the number of new infections. The area of ​​the epidemic – half of all new injuries last year was from the continent. But four African countries – Lesoto, Malawi, Rwanda and Zimbabwe – were on the right path to achieve a 90 % decrease in new infections by 2030 compared to 2010.

Another success story for Africa was the performance of antivirus, which helps to suppress the symptoms of HIV. Along with other medical developments in this field, they helped increase life in sub -Saharan Africa from 56 years in 2010 to 62 years in 2024.

This transformation began when the US President George W. Bush launched an ambitious program to combat HIV/AIDS in 2003, saying that he would serve “strategic and moral interests” of the United States.

Known as the PEPFAR Emergency Emergency Plan, it has led to the investment of more than $ 100 billion (74 billion pounds) in the response of HIV/global HIV – the greatest commitment by any country to treat one disease in the world.

South Africa includes about 7.7 million people with HIV, the highest number in the world, According to AIDS operations.

The United Nations Agency adds that about 5.9 million of them are receiving anti -virus treatment, which led to a decrease of 66 % in AIDS deaths since 2010, adding the United Nations agency.

The government of Pepfar says about 17 % to the HIV/AIDS program. Money has been used for various projects, including the operation of mobile clinics to facilitate patients to obtain treatment.

Trump administration discounts have worried that injury rates could rise again.

“I think we will start seeing an increase in the number of HIV infection, the number of tuberculosis, and the number of other infectious diseases,” Professor Lin Morris, Vice President of the University of Johannesburg in Whits, told BBC.

“We will start seeing a reflection of what was essentially a real success story. We were at the top of some of these things.”

Gogo notes that the treatment is a matter of life and death, especially for the weak population like sexual workers.

“People do not want to default on their Arvs. They are afraid that they will die if they cannot reach them.

The discounts also affected research aimed at finding HIV and AIDS treatment.

“There is a long -term effect, which is that we will not get new HIV vaccines,” said Professor Morris.

“We will not continue at the top of the viruses that are circulated. Even with new viruses that may appear, we will not get the monitoring infrastructure that we had before.”

South Africa was one of the global leaders in HIV research. Several medications that help prevent the virus, which have benefited from people around the world, have been tried in South Africa.

This includes preparatory (prevention before exposure), a drug that prevents negative HIV from hunting the virus.

Another preventive drug that was released this year, LenacAPAVIR, an injection that is taken twice a year, has been tried that provides fully protection from HIV in South Africa.

In a laboratory on the campus of the University of Witts, a small group of scientists is still working on a HIV vaccine.

It is part of the wonderful consortium, and it is a group of laboratories that operate in eight African countries to develop a virus vaccine.

“We have developed a vaccine test to see how successful this is, and then we will try human beings,” Abdullah Eli, associate professor at Whites University, BBC at his laboratory.

“The plan was the management of experiences in Africa based on the research conducted by the Africans because we want this research to benefit in our society as well as humanity.”

But the US financing discounts cast their work in doubt.

“When the stop came, this meant that we had to stop everything. Some of us only managed to obtain additional financing so that we could continue our work. We have returned to months, maybe it might be for a year,” said Professor Eli.

The laboratory lacks funding to implement the clinical trials scheduled later this year.

Professor Eli says: “This is a very great loss for South Africa and the continent. This means that any possible research comes out of Africa will have to be tested in Europe or the United States,” says Professor Eli.

In June, universities asked the government a rescue plan of 4.6 billion from Rand South Africa ($ 260 million; 190 million pounds) over the next three years to cover some missing funding from the United States.

“We are expanding support because South Africa tops HIV research, but it does not lead to itself. This has repercussions for the practice and policies of the entire world,” says Dr. Pathiwi Matoto, President of Universities in South Africa.

South African Minister of Health, Aaron Motwalide, announced on Wednesday that some alternative funding had been secured for research.

He said that the Bill, Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust are agreed to donate 100 meters Rand each immediately, while the government will save 400 million Rand over the next three years.

This would reach a total of 600 meters Rand, which is less than 4.6 billion Rand requested by researchers.

As for Jogo, you were hoping that by the time when she was elderly, it was possible to find a HIV/AIDS treatment, but it is less optimistic now.

“I am a nine -year -old child. I want to live as long as I can continue to take care of him,” I told BBC.

“This is not just a problem at the present time, we have to think about how it affects the next generation of women and youth.”