The US Aids relief programme head, John Nkengasong, says his priority is to persuade the US Congress to return to granting a five-year reauthorisation of the programme.
The President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) was established by former Republican president George W Bush in 2003 to support countries hardest hit by the HIV/Aids pandemic, including SA. It remains the biggest foreign donor to SA’s HIV/Aids programmes, and now provides more than $450m a year.
For two decades Pepfar had strong bipartisan support in the US Congress through successive administrations and routinely agreed to reauthorise funding for the programme on a five-year term. That all changed last year when a polarised Congress got caught up in a broader US debate about access to abortion, delayed reauthorising funding and eventually granted it for only 12 months.
While Pepfar is enshrined in US law, the failure to approve another five-year spending plan has created uncertainty for recipient countries such as SA.
On Thursday, Nkengasong said in Gaborone, Botswana, his immediate priority was to work with Congress “to get a clear five-year authorisation” to enable sustained support for Pepfar-supported countries. The US had for the past 21 years been a “committed and proud” partner to African countries hit hard by HIV/Aids and would continue to be so, he said in a virtual media briefing.
“The fight against HIV/Aids is not over. We need to sustain the response, treat the people who are infected and prevent new infections,” he said.
Nkengasong is on a tour of African countries supported by Pepfar and visited SA last week.
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