Fears by SA HIV/Aids researchers that their grant funding by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be terminated or put on hold were realised at the weekend.
While it was difficult to determine the extent of the terminations or halts — some of the grants come directly from the NIH and others as sub-awards from US universities — at least two programmes received letters informing them that they would no longer receive grants or that their grants were now uncertain. The reason given was that the grants no longer aligned with NIH priorities.
An article on Saturday by Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism editor-in-chief Mia Malan said some universities — that did not want to be named but which received sub-grants from US universities — were sent stop-work orders on Friday, though this could not be confirmed. Further termination notifications could come in the week ahead.
SA Medical Research Council (MRC) chief scientific officer Prof Glenda Gray estimates that SA has received $250m a year from the NIH for medical research through direct and indirect awards.
She had received notice that her own $3.1m NIH grant for a clinical trial unit in Soweto had moved from an approved to a pending status. This was core money for the project and its removal would have consequences for the employment of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others who conduct medical research in Soweto.
The $2.5m grant to the Wits Research Group Clinical Unit was terminated on Friday night.
Disinvesting in SA means we won’t have the answers that could contribute to both global and local science.
— Glenda Gray, SA Medical Research Council chief scientific officer
The Trump administration has already stopped all US Agency for International Development (USAID) research grants to SA. It has also terminated all USAID grants provided to HIV/Aids organisations via the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief.
The NIH is the biggest funder of medical research in SA, providing grants to projects at the MRC and many of SA’s top universities for more than 30 years. Much of the work focuses on HIV and tuberculosis, but the NIH also funds research on noncommunicable diseases.
“There is ... an assault on science,” said Gray, who is also the principal investigator of the Brilliant consortium, a multi-country network of scientists working on HIV vaccine development.
“The only place where we can definitively answer questions about HIV prevention, treatment, cure and microbicides is in SA. Disinvesting in SA means we won’t have the answers that could contribute to both global and local science,” she said in a webinar hosted by the Academy of Science of SA last week.
SA has been central to global efforts to develop HIV prevention tools and improve treatments, because it has a high prevalence of the disease, a strong regulatory system and well-established clinical trial infrastructure.
MRC president Ntobeko Ntusi said no single partner in the global health environment could readily fill the void left by the US. “We need to look to Europe, Asia, the private sector and philanthropy,” he said.
Commenting on the weekend cuts to research grants, HIV clinician and Wits University associate professor of medicine Ian Sanne told the Science journal that “this is going to cut deep”.
Sanne is the principal investigator at the Wits Research Group Clinical Unit, which participates in international human trials of HIV and TB medicines conducted by different NIH-supported networks. He said no action had been taken as yet on the termination.
Gray told Business Day that SA had played a pivotal role in clinical trials that had shaped international guidelines about the most effective ways to use anti-HIV and TB drugs. The trials had also helped lead to approvals of new drugs by the US Food and Drug Administration and SA Health Products Regulatory Authority.
“If you take this away, you take away scientists, doctors, nurses, laboratories, fundamental science, basic science, clinical science, supervisors for PhDs and master’s and postdocs.
“You basically abolish medical research in SA. That’s how serious this potential threat is,” she said.
Gray pointed out that the cancellation of research grants by the NIH was a global phenomenon, including in the US.
The Trump administration recently cancelled $400m in NIH grants to Columbia University in the US over what it described as anti-Semitic harassment on its campus.
With Tamar Kahn
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