US shutdown of HIV/Aids funding ‘could lead to 500,000 deaths in South Africa’

Patients’ files at an HIV/Aids clinic in Kampala, Uganda, this month. The sudden halt to USAid funding has forced many health programmes across Africa to close. Photograph: H Nalwadda/Getty

Sweeping notices of termination of funding have been received by organisations working with HIV and Aids across Africa, with dire predictions of a huge rise in deaths as a result.

After the US announced a permanent end to funding for HIV projects, services across the board have been affected, say doctors and programme managers, from projects helping orphans and pregnant women to those reaching transgender individuals and sex workers.