US is taking a ‘real risk’ with hasty shift in efforts to fight HIV, experts say

A child stands at an advocacy wall after receiving a dose of drugs used to prevent HIV from replicating, at a home that uses Pepfar supplies in Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

The US government released likely the last report from Pepfar (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) earlier this month and the chief science officer announced his resignation days later as the US moves to a patchwork of individual partnerships with each country, potentially driven by resource extraction.

While more leadership with other countries has long been the goal with global HIV efforts, experts fear the US is moving too quickly without being able to monitor its efforts as well as it has done with Pepfar for more than two decades. They fear losing ground to the virus even as the end of the HIV epidemic is in sight.