Plea for private-sector help as US aid cuts put more than 15,000 SA health workers’ jobs at risk

12 Feb 2025

A coalition of South African health service organisations has raised the alarm over the funding freeze, as some harm reduction and LGBTI services have already closed.

If the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) is halted the South African public health system “will face a severe crisis” that could endanger millions of lives. This is according to a coalition of 17 health service organisations in South Africa, including large ones such as Anova Health, Health Systems Trust, TB HIV Care, The Aurum Institute and Wits RHI.

In a statement, they appealed to private sector donors and “high net-worth individuals” to help fund the shortfall caused by US aid cuts.

Read the statement

Pepfar is a multibillion-dollar US initiative that supports HIV and TB-related health services around the world. In South Africa alone, more than 15,000 staff (mostly health workers) are funded by Pepfar, according to the Health Department.

But a series of executive orders issued by US President Donald Trump has suspended some of this funding and the rest remains precarious. The orders include a 90-day pause on all US foreign development assistance and another that explicitly bars South Africa from aid (with some leeway allowed).

Some health service providers in South Africa continue to receive money from Pepfar under a limited waiver that allows for the continuation of certain “life-saving HIV services”. But the waiver hasn’t protected all Pepfar beneficiaries. As a result, some organisations have had to close their doors, while many others have had to curtail what they can provide.

The waiver doesn’t cover all health services, and many health programmes that target high-risk groups (such as people who use drugs) have not been protected. This is even if they provide life-saving HIV services.

Services suspended for the most vulnerable

Under the waiver, Pepfar can continue to fund programmes that offer treatment and testing for HIV, including antiretroviral (ARV) services. Projects can also continue to provide condoms and HIV prevention medication, known as PrEP, but only to pregnant and breastfeeding women.

The waiver does not allow for continued funding of PrEP medication or condoms to anyone else. It also doesn’t cover crucial research, such as population surveys which tell us how many people have HIV and where they’re located. Additionally, it doesn’t allow for continued funding of methadone maintenance programmes for people who use heroin. This is despite the fact that this is the most effective way to help people to stop using heroin and to curb the sharing of drug needles (something which contributes to the spread of HIV).

Dr Gloria Maimela, who represents the coalition of organisations behind the statement, told GroundUp and Spotlight: “The staff who are providing [HIV] testing and treatment [are] back at facilities to provide those services, but staff that are providing other services not included in the waiver have been stopped, and are waiting for further guidance.”

In addition, organisations that help key populations have not been protected by the waiver, according to Maimela. Key populations are groups that are more at risk of becoming infected with HIV, such as people who inject drugs, sex workers, transgender people and men who have sex with men. South African policy documents and the World Health Organization recommend that health programmes focus on these groups since they’re more likely to acquire and transmit HIV.

Despite this, US-funded organisations that target key populations have been forced to shut their doors in South Africa. Maimela says this is even in cases where they were offering the kind of life-saving ARV treatment covered in the waiver.

“For us, this is of grave concern,” Maimela says, “because we know that right now that is where most of the [HIV] infections lie”.

So far, organisations which provide HIV treatment and prevention services to LGBTI people have been forced to shut down, including the Ivan Toms Centre and Engage Men’s Health.

Additionally, GroundUp and Spotlight have identified two Pepfar-supported harm reduction centres that have had to close. These provided methadone and clean needles to people who inject drugs (when drug users have access to clean needles they are less likely to resort to sharing them, which brings down HIV transmission).

Ricardo Walters, who provides consulting services to health service organisations across Africa, told Spotlight and GroundUp that a similar trend could be seen across the continent.

“Many organisations that were specifically offering services to key populations were not suspended; their project funding was terminated,” he said. “They will not be coming back.”

These organisations were helping patients “who often could not access services in a general [health] setting”.

Walters says the reasons given for the termination of these programmes vary across organisations and countries.

“Where there are reasons, it’s often [stated] that it’s because the programme contains components of DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility] and gender ideology, which is directly from a previous executive order [in which the Trump administration terminated all federal funding for DEIA]. The terms are never defined… no one says don’t treat gay men.”

Appeal to the private sector

Beyond the shuttering of existing organisations, providers that are covered under the waiver remain unsure about whether funding will restart after 90 days. Also, large sections of the US aid establishment have been gutted.

The recent statement by health organisations argues that if this aid is terminated “patients, including children, will lose access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment, while thousands of healthcare workers will be unable to provide essential HIV care. The consequences will be immediate. Fewer people will receive timely testing and treatment, leading to more undiagnosed cases, rising infections and the spread of drug resistance. Mortality will increase, opportunistic infections will surge, and TB rates will escalate – putting the entire population at risk.”

As such, the statement calls on private corporations, donors and philanthropists to help in supporting these health services.

“We encourage people to get in touch with us,” Maimela says, “so that even as we hold dialogues with the government, [those people] could be part of [the conversation] and step in and say how they want to help.” DM

To find out how to support organisations that provide HIV and TB related health services in South Africa contact Gloria Maimela at [email protected].

Published jointly by GroundUp and Spotlight.

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South Africa

Services suspended for the most vulnerable

Appeal to the private sector