Trump Pauses Disbursements to Program Supplying H.I.V. Treatment Worldwide

[TommyT139]

18. Different programs

This isn't about the research cutoffs. This is finding for PEPFAR, which provides drugs to treat HIV/AIDS. The program was started by Bush, and has been very very successful.

Antiretroviral therapy (often daily pills) keeps the HIV virus level low in the body. Keeping viral levels suppressed, that is, "undetectable," means that the disease doesn't progress, and furthermore, that HIV cannot be passed on to sexual partners (or babies through breast milk). The shorthand for this is "U=U" -- Undetectable equals untransmittable.

Here are numbers from the pro ably-gone-soon HIV.gov site:

Across 55 countries, PEPFAR is supporting life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 20.6 million people, including 566,000 children with HIV, as of September 30, 2024.

This decision is a death sentence for many of those people.