{"id":602030,"date":"2026-08-23T10:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T10:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/602030\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T10:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T10:16:09","slug":"trumps-hiv-funding-cuts-have-left-sufferers-undiagnosed-and-could-see-an-aids-comeback-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/602030\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s HIV funding cuts have left sufferers undiagnosed and could see an AIDS comeback \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

When community health workers stopped visiting markets and remote villages in Zambia earlier this year, the impact was not immediately visible. Clinics remained open. Antiretroviral medicines continued to be dispensed. <\/p>\n

On paper, the country\u2019s HIV response appeared largely intact.<\/p>\n

The consequences are not confined to Zambia. In Europe, HIV prevention and surveillance are also under pressure. With an increase of 12 percent<\/a> in 2024 of HIV diagnoses across Europe, prevention remains a critical priority, as well in Europe as on other continents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we are seeing in the field is that a lot of community-based programmes have actually been stopped,\u201d Mwelwa Phiri, an expert on HIV\/AIDS at the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine<\/a> based in Zambart, Zambia, told EUobserver. \u201cOutreach work in the community has also been stopped because there is just no funding for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, outreach teams travelled to markets, densely populated neighbourhoods and rural communities where people often could not afford to lose a day\u2019s wages travelling to a clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing out into the community and providing these services much closer to them means we are reaching more people with HIV testing,\u201d Phiri said. Testing people meant \u201cslowing down transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, many of those services have been drastically reduced following cuts to US foreign assistance that disrupted large parts of the president\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief<\/a> (PEPFAR), the programme widely credited with transforming the global HIV response.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“The whole PEPFAR system was disrupted,” Elise Lankiewicz, policy associate at amfAR<\/a>, the Foundation for AIDS Research, told EUobserver. “We have lost many of the services that actually make the system work.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When community health workers stopped visiting markets and remote villages in Zambia earlier this year, the impact was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[169044,103,255128,255131,198105,198102,61,60,255126,198100,198103,255129,255127,198101,198104,255130],"class_list":["post-602030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-health","tag-identifier26","tag-identifier4313","tag-identifier4403","tag-identifier4431","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nameafrica","tag-namehealth","tag-namesociety","tag-nameus","tag-termcodeafrica","tag-termcodehealth","tag-termcodesociety","tag-termcodeus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}