Radical changes in US policy threaten two decades’ progress in HIV

The global HIV response is suffering serious disruption due to cuts in US government funding, the closure of USAID and a lack of clarity about future financing, Professor Chris Beyrer, Director of the Duke Global Health Institute at Duke University, North Carolina, told the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2025) in San Francisco on Monday.

Criticising the US government’s ban on the use of the terms equity, diversity and inclusion in the work of any federally funded programme, Professor Beyrer emphasised the diversity of the global HIV pandemic and of the global HIV response. “Diversity is in our DNA. It’s who we are. We can’t not address diversity because we are dealing with a diverse pandemic,” he said.

“The achievement of getting three-quarters of people living with HIV living on this planet onto antiretroviral therapy is the greatest achievement of equity in global health.”

But this achievement is now threatened by radical changes in US policy, which began with a freeze on all US foreign aid assistance on the day President Trump took office, followed by the abrupt closure of USAID, the agency which managed US foreign aid, including much of the $6.5 billion PEPFAR programme that funded HIV treatment and prevention in over 50 countries in 2024.

Read the full news story at aidsmap.