Trump’s HIV funding cuts having ‘severe and devastating’ impact around the world

Nairobi’s Nyumbani Children's Home, which cares for orphans with HIV, in February last year. Photograph: T Mukoya/Reuters View image in fullscreen Nairobi’s Nyumbani Children's Home, which cares for orphans with HIV, in February last year. Photograph: T Mukoya/Reuters Trump’s HIV funding cuts having ‘severe and devastating’ impact around the world The President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief has saved 26m lives globally, but slashing of funds and dismantling of USAID have forced clinics to shut in dozens of countries No part of the United States’ anti-HIV programme has escaped unscathed from Donald Trump’s funding cuts, despite pledges from the administration to protect care that saved lives around the world, a new report has found. Funding cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) have caused “severe and devastating” disruption globally, with thousands of staff laid off and many clinics closed, according to research being presented next week at the 26th International Aids Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It warns that changes in US policy risk reversing progress in the fight against HIV/Aids. Organisations still in receipt of US funding are also changing what they do to comply with the Trump administration’s policies targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives , reproductive rights and the provision of gender-affirming care, researchers found. Elise Lankiewicz, from the Aids research foundation Amfar and co-lead author of its Pepfar Pulse report , said: “Disruption was incredibly widespread. No part of the programme really escaped unscathed – and that includes areas of the programme that this administration intended to protect.” Pepfar is credited with saving more than 26 million lives and changing the trajectory of the HIV epidemic since it was set up in 2003 during George W Bush’s presidency. It works through partner organisations around the world, who find people at risk and offer them testing for HIV, protection against the virus, such as condoms or medicines, and treatment if needed. However, many of its grants were abruptly withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2025 – more than half had been managed via USAID, the agency dissolved by Trump in July 2025 . A waiver that was issued months before, in February 2025, theoretically allowed programmes providing life-saving treatment or preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission to continue. “The reality is it’s incredibly hard to cut one award without there being ripple effects throughout the system,” said Lankiewicz. View image in fullscreen A protest in New York calling for the closure of Delaney Hall immigrant detention centre and denouncing the Trump administration’s cuts to HIV/Aids funding. Photograph: G Randazzo/Zuma Amfar surveyed 166 organisations across 46 countries that had been due to receive Pepfar funding in 2025. More than half of the respondents had at least one terminated award, resulting in more than 1,700 closed clinics, drop-in c