As HIV/Aids organisations scramble to make sense of the Trump administration’s shock moves on foreign aid, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has met the US chargé d'affaires to SA Dana Brown.
In a brief statement issued on Tuesday afternoon, the health department said the minister and the chargé d'affaires noted the importance of the assistance that SA had received from the US since the start of the HIV/Aids pandemic and that the minister conveyed his thanks for the support.
Brown is the acting chief of mission for the US embassy, pending US President Donald Trump’s appointment of a new ambassador to SA.
The primary vehicle for US aid to SA has been the US president’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), which has channelled more than $140bn to SA in the past 20 years.
“This assistance has been consistent and crucial to the drastic reduction in maternal to child transmission of HIV, infant deaths and the increase in life expectancy generally. Communication channels are open between the ministry and the embassy, and we continue to discuss our life-saving health partnership moving forward,” the department said.
“Until details are available, the minister calls on all persons on antiretrovirals to under no circumstances stop this life-saving treatment,” the health department said.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 20 freezing all foreign aid for 90 days pending a review of whether it aligned with his “America first” political agenda.
The directive brought programmes supported by US aid to a grinding halt worldwide. For SA this meant an abrupt halt to the work of non-governmental organisations supported by Pepfar, which according to the minister now funds 17% of SA’s HIV/Aids expenditure.
While US secretary of state Marco Rubio signed a partial waiver to the aid freeze last week, Pepfar-supported organisations in SA have yet to receive permission to return to work and which aspects of their programmes may resume.
Scientists working on projects funded by the US National Institutes of Health are also still in the dark.
Unlike many other countries supported by Pepfar, most of the antiretroviral medication supplied to patients in SA is provided by the government.
Pepfar-supported organisations in SA have over the past decade shifted away from dispensing treatment to providing technical expertise. They play a vital role in supporting the government’s efforts to identify people who are HIV-positive but not yet diagnosed, and to help people who are on treatment stick with their medication.
An estimated 7.8-million people are living with HIV in SA, of whom 1.1-million people are undiagnosed.
Parliament’s portfolio committee on health said it expected to be briefed by Motsoaledi on Wednesday on the impact of Trump’s aid freeze.
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