Stephanie Sy:
The Bush initiative is called PEPFAR, or President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It was the largest health commitment ever made by a nation to combat a single disease. It has saved 25 million lives.
But the Trump administration’s cuts in foreign aid has thrown this initiative into a tailspin. A few days after the White House announced it was pausing foreign aid for 90 days, the State Department granted a waiver that allows the continuation of lifesaving HIV treatment. But global health advocates say the waivers are not being implemented adequately and don’t address prevention efforts.
With me to discuss this shift in HIV funding is Angeli Achrekar, a deputy executive director at UNAIDS, which helps coordinate the global fight against AIDS and provides services in 55 countries.
Angeli, thank you so much for joining the “News Hour.”
I want to start with who is being the worst impacted by this foreign aid freeze when it comes to the global fight against HIV-AIDS.
Angeli Achrekar, Deputy Executive Director, United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS: The people that are most impacted by this freeze, by this pause are the people served at the country level in the communities, the 20.6 million people that PEPFAR supports on lifesaving treatment.
Those are the people that we’re talking about. These include mothers, babies, fathers, adults. These are 20.6 million people on lifesaving services. These are the people most affected.
