Johannesburg (AP) – On a warm night in Johannesburg, news spread like wildfires among sex workers: within 24 hours, several non-profit clinics offering free HIV Services It will close when President Donald Trump announces The US was cutting foreign aid.
Some South Africans who live with or are at risk with HIV, Lifesaving drugs It’s just in time. Others didn’t.
Six months later, a country where more people live With HIV More than anything else, it struggles with its most vulnerable treatment. More than 63,000 people were receiving treatment in 12 clinics across the country that were closed. Up to 220,000 people are facing daily HIV drug confusion.
The South African government vowed to do so The US is withdrawing by around $427 million Support, the HIV program, The largest in the world.
Sex workers, among the most vulnerable South Africans, because their jobs are illegal, transgender people spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from their families and communities. They described the new world where HIV medications are difficult to take, or preventive medications for people at risk for HIV.
One of the HIV-positive sex workers and the mother of three said they had been taking medication for almost four months since leaving the public hospital.
“All I could think of was my child, I was going to die, and how would I explain to them that I was sick because of the line of work I chose?” she said. The 37-year-old said he finally got a month’s drug supply in June from a mobile clinic that was introduced after funding cuts. She didn’t know what to do afterwards.
Another HIV-positive sex worker said he relied on illegally purchasing drugs on the black market.
The US has since issued a limited exemption that allowed the reopening of certain life-saving HIV services worldwide; Dismantling of many of our foreign aids I created chaos. And for many affected people, the harm has already been done.
Overall, experts warn hundreds of thousands of people The next few new infections Years in South Africa, and tens of thousands of additional deaths if aid reductions have not been recovered or covered by other means.
Turned away from the hospital
A major challenge for those who have lost access to US-funded nonprofit clinics is finding help elsewhere, including public hospitals.
“I tried my local clinics and three of them, but they refused treatment because I didn’t have a referral from my previous clinic,” said the 37-year-old sex worker.
Kate Rees, a public health expert at the ANOVA Health Institute in Johannesburg, said that having transfer documents is ideal, but that is not necessary and that it cannot be driven away.
“But the people in the clinic are actually people who drive them away, whether nurses, security guards, doctors,” Reese said.
In response to the Associated Press question, Foster Mohale, a spokesman for the South African Health Department, said they do not know who they have been turned away and have not encouraged people to go to public health facilities closest to people.
Another challenge in public hospitals and clinics is discrimination, especially for sex workers and transgender people.
“In the hospital, they said they only prepare for people who are HIV-positive and are in a relationship with people who are about to have babies,” said one trans woman. She personally decides to buy medicine and moves with her mother to save money to buy it.
“I’m not going back to the clinic. I’m with people who make fun of me, like a clown,” she said.
The Health Department did not answer any questions regarding the issue.
Not everyone can afford to buy medicines individually or on the black market. On the black market, the bottle is reportedly at around $25, with the contents not yet confirmed.
Regular withdrawal from healthcare by sex workers and others means that many people are no longer tested and don’t know what level of the virus they have in their fluids and whether they can pass it on to others.
Anger at Countryman Mask
Even in front US cut8 million people in South Africa are estimated to live with HIV, and 8 million people were not taking the medicine. Some didn’t have the time or money to spend on trips to the clinic. Some were either denying it or didn’t believe in the medicine. Some people have not yet been diagnosed.
Now the number is increasing.
Yvette Rafael, co-founder of local advocacy for the prevention of HIV and AIDS groups, said she and fellow activists were worried about South Africa’s retreat.
“We’re scared that we’ll see people die again,” she said.
The concern is the echo of Africa as a wholethe continent was hit hardest by cuts in US aid. The Trump administration defended the cuts, saying spending wasn’t consistent with our profits.
“And we’re in debt of $37 trillion, so at some point the continent needs to absorb more of this burden of providing healthcare,” Russell Vert, director of the U.S. Administration, told the hearing in June.
Some South Africans wonder if Trump’s stance was influenced by his fellow countryman Elon Musk, who oversaw early efforts to cut our aid.
“I don’t have a folk language to describe how I feel, but I hate them for what they did,” said one trans woman. “Our lives matter.”
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