Get Guardian on GoogleThe Trump administration is making plans to shut down the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a federal programme that provides funding for HIV treatment in Nigeria and many other developing countries.
Documents obtained by the New York Times revealed that the U.S. government has begun mapping out plans to shut down the programme.
The government has drafted a new plan to shift the programme from one that provides medicines and services to treat and prevent the spread of HIV in low-income countries, to one centred on “bilateral relationships” with developing countries.
Organisations have been instructed to begin preparing for a transition and start phasing out U.S. support in several countries, some within as little as two years.
This is coming only a few days after the U.S. Congress moved to exempt the anti-AIDS programme from the major foreign aid cut.
While this move has been widely celebrated, the New York Times reports that this progress may be cut short.
According to the PEPFAR documents, the programme will focus instead on detecting outbreaks that could pose a threat to the United States and creating new markets for American drugs and technologies.
