SerpApi.Org
A new study to be presented at an international AIDS conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil next week shows the devastating effects of cuts that the Trump administration has made in the global effort to eradicate HIV/AIDS. Sharp drops in both prevention efforts and treatment for children and others at risk from the disease have resulted from Trump’s cuts, according to a survey conducted by the HIV charity amFAR.
The findings are at odds with the State Department’s own assessment of PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, funding of which was halted completely soon after President Donald Trump took office in January 2025.
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“We have not verified this specific report, but we can categorically say that its methodology is flawed,” the State Department told The New York Times, dismissing the bad news and claiming that slashing the program had resulted in “strengthening PEPFAR.”
According to amFAR, three-quarters of the organizations funded by the program stopped providing services to those at highest risk from HIV, including sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender clients, and injectable drug users.
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A second study conducted by a multinational group of scientists (also scheduled for presentation at the conference), revealed PEPFAR supported treatment for about 77,000 fewer children in 2025 than it had the previous year, an average 14% decline over the previous year. India and South Africa each reported a decline of more than 45%.
PEPFAR is credited with saving 26 million lives in more than 50 countries since President George W. Bush created the initiative in 2003.
“We unfortunately are going through a very complex and difficult moment, where all these good achievements are challenged by the new policies,” Dr. Beatriz Grinsztejn, president of the International AIDS Society, said at a press briefing last week ahead of the conference.
The amFAR study surveyed 166 organizations in 46 countries and found that delayed or terminated awards in 2025 resulted in the shuttering of at least 1,700 sites that had delivered HIV treatment and prevention services. More than 16,000 workers were also laid off as a result, the survey found.
Because the survey included just one quarter of PEPFAR funding recipients, the true numbers of those affected are several times larger.
For those local organizations still operating, the funding cuts and raft of new requirements imposed by the administration have also proved debilitating.
“Even if a site doesn’t close, what you’re seeing is longer wait times, and fewer staff, and nonfunctioning data systems,” said Jennifer Sherwood, amfAR’s director of research and public policy.
Those still operating are also now contending with restrictions on service to some clients in the form of an expanded Mexico City Policy, the anti-abortion restriction on funding to organizations that provide abortion-related reproductive healthcare services. The expanded policy now includes restrictions on funding for groups acknowledging transgender identity and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Such groups are now barred from funding, absent stripping any reference to those from their budgets services.
About half of the groups surveyed reported supply chain disruptions in procuring condoms, lab supplies, and antiretroviral drugs for treatment, with such shipments either halted or delayed.
The system that is left “is really a treatment-heavy model, which isn’t really conducive to controlling the HIV epidemic long-term,” said Elise Lankiewicz, a policy associate at amfAR.
For the most vulnerable affected by the disease, the chaos sowed by the cuts has been immediately life-threatening. Children living with HIV are at particular risk, because they “can get very sick very quickly without access to drugs, and so the stakes are really high,” said Ramona Godbole, a senior manager at the Clinton Health Access Initiative.
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