US says it will continue limited AIDS relief services in South Africa

Antony Sguazzin and Janice Kew, Bloomberg News on Feb 11, 2025

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The U.S. said a waiver on halting some activities in South Africa under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, will focus on “life-saving” treatments.

These will include HIV care and treatment services such as testing for the disease, counseling prevention, the treatment of opportunistic infections related to HIV and procurement of medicine, the U.S. Embassy to South Africa said in a statement on Monday.

The waiver, which applies to all countries that have PEPFAR programs, will also cover the prevention of transmission of HIV from infected mothers to newly born children. The guidance has been shared with partners of the program, the embassy said.

“Salaries for health workers, laboratory, and supply chain staff necessary to carry out the specific activities” of the program are included in the waiver, according to a State Department statement published on the website of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Feb. 8 that he’s frozen all aid to South Africa. He cited reasons including a false claim that human-rights violations are being committed under the nation’s new land-expropriation law, and its allegations of genocide against Israel.

Even so, there’s still confusion on the ground because only some PEPFAR activities have permission to restart and each related U.S. agency will follow their own process.

The limited waiver is also for 90 days, leaving uncertainty about what happens next to HIV-treatment programs in a country that has the highest number afflicted by the virus with 13% of the population, or about 8 million people, carrying the disease.

Non-governmental organizations that provide care have begun laying off staff and patients have no idea where to pick up their drugs. Systems and clinics built over decades have been thrown into disarray, François Venter, an HIV clinician and director of the Wits Ezintsha research center in Johannesburg, said in a statement before the announcement.

“People are going to start dying soon,” he said. “Can you imagine being dependent on treatment to save your life, and having it snatched away from you like this, with no alternative?”

Many clinics that provide HIV treatment, drugs and counseling remain closed, a group of HIV-focused organizations said in the same statement.

—With assistance from Moses Mozart Dzawu.