‘It’s back to drug rationing’: the end of HIV was in sight. Then came the cuts

A protest against cuts to American foreign aid spending, including USAid and the Pepfar programme to combat HIV/Aids, on Capitol Hill in February. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP

This year the world should have been “talking about the virtual elimination of HIV” in the near future. “Within five years,” says Prof Sharon Lewin, a leading researcher in the field. “Now that’s all very uncertain.”

Scientific advances had allowed doctors and campaigners to feel optimistic that the end of HIV as a public health threat was just around the corner.