US to end HIV funding for South Africa, citing Afrikaner persecution claims
The US will halt funding for South Africa’s HIV and Aids programmes, a State Department official confirmed, describing a “phased drawdown” of support under the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR). The official tied the move to “South Africa’s failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration” — a reference to a broader dispute in which Washington has alleged the government is failing to protect the white-minority Afrikaner community.
The stakes are unusually concrete. More than eight million South Africans live with HIV, the highest number of any country, and the US had been providing an estimated $400m a year through PEPFAR until 2025. South Africa’s health ministry said it had not been formally notified but had “long been working on a self-reliance plan.” Independent analyses earlier this year warned that sustained US cuts could translate into well over 100,000 additional HIV infections by 2028, and the funding squeeze has already hollowed out delivery systems needed to roll out newer prevention tools.
The decision marks one of the sharper applications yet of US health aid as diplomatic leverage, converting a long-running political grievance into a withdrawal of life-saving funding.