South Africa’s HIV/AIDS clinics scramble over U.S. aid freeze

South African HIV clinics face closure as U.S. funding freeze disrupts services for 8.45 million HIV-positive population.

The gates at a Johannesburg LGBTQ clinic called OUT have been closed for more than a week and HIV prevention and treatment services suspended for its 6,000 clients.

The lights are also off at the University of the Witwatersrand’s HIV project, a leader in the provision of services to sex workers in South Africa. a country with one of the largest HIV-positive populations in the world.

Around 14% of South Africans, around 8.45 million people, were HIV positive in 2022, according to government statistics.

They are among the several South African HIV/AIDS healthcare providers that have been confused, angry, and scrambling for survival since U.S. President Donald Trump issued a 90-day freeze last week on Washington’s foreign aid.

South Africa is one of the largest recipients of funds from the U.S. HIV/AIDS response programme called PEPFAR, a project launched in 2003 and now paused by the funding freeze.

PEPFAR accounts for 17% of the country’s HIV budget, ensuring some 5.5 million people receive anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment, according to the Health Ministry.

“The U.S. is a totally unreliable partner,” said Dawie Nel, the director at OUT, whose Engage Men’s Health clinic in Johannesburg has a note fixed to the gate that announces it is “temporarily closed”. “The system is very volatile and chaotic.”