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Report
Death Sentence: The real cost of Trump’s aid cuts on HIV
The Independent
Follow
5/28/2025
Category
🗞
News
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
He's feeling a headache, chest pain, abdominal pain, even joint pain.
00:18
Now he don't have drugs and there's nowhere to get the drugs.
00:22
Are you worried that he might die soon?
00:25
Yes.
00:27
USA headquarters in Washington, D.C. was closed today.
00:32
Assistance for the PEPFAR program has also been put on hold.
00:35
The United States government is not a charity.
00:37
It's been run by a bunch of radical lunatics and we're getting them out.
00:41
What's happening right now is dangerous for the United States and humanity.
00:57
We here? Let's go.
01:11
Today we are joining Grace, a volunteer health worker, as he goes on his daily rounds of these remote villages in Uganda.
01:19
For years he has checked on HIV patients, coordinating their life-saving treatment with charities.
01:27
So for now I have five people who don't have drugs at all.
01:31
HIV drugs?
01:32
They don't have enough drugs.
01:34
Everything changed in January when during his first week in office, Donald Trump abruptly slashed funds to the US's global HIV programs.
01:44
That was devastating here.
01:47
70% of Uganda's HIV response relies on USAID. Money that is now gone.
01:59
James, his niece Beatrice and her 11-year-old daughter are all HIV positive.
02:06
In the future, his brother has pushed on the right side.
02:30
Monica, a mother of five, is not only worried about her own life, but that of her 14-year-old
02:48
son, who is also HIV positive, and off his medication.
02:54
Both of them managed to borrow some drugs from Monica's sister, who is also HIV positive.
03:01
But even that has now run out.
03:24
I don't know how to do it.
03:31
I don't know how to do it.
03:34
I don't know how to do it.
03:39
I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear...
03:50
In a shocking move during the first few hours of his presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive
03:56
order that froze almost all foreign assistance for 90 days.
04:01
We've also effectively ended the left-wing scam known as USAID, the agency's...
04:06
That included PEPFAR, the US's global HIV AIDS response program.
04:12
PEPFAR was first introduced by Republican President George W. Bush in 2003.
04:19
Seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many.
04:25
It is regarded as one of the world's most successful health initiatives ever, and has been integral
04:32
to putting the world on track to end the AIDS pandemic by 2030.
04:37
Because of the US, there are about 20 million people across the world that are on life-saving
04:45
treatment.
04:46
So a pause or a freeze in that funding is devastating.
04:51
If PEPFAR were permanently discontinued, there would be an additional 4 million AIDS-related deaths,
04:59
an additional 6 million new HIV infections by 2029.
05:06
Because what you're saying is you were on track for this crisis essentially to be over by 2030.
05:14
But you're now talking about there being an additional...
05:16
We're talking about an additional 2,300 new infections every single day.
05:23
There's no way that we can get to the end of AIDS.
05:27
With these number of new infections, we cannot turn off the tab.
05:31
The US State Department says a waiver is in place for life-saving care.
05:37
But on the ground in Uganda, AIDS clinics say no money is getting through.
05:47
Family Hope supports 5,000 HIV patients, including children.
05:52
They had to temporarily close for two months and only recently reopened with a skeleton staff.
05:59
We apologize for that, but now we are open two days.
06:05
My health workers are working on voluntary.
06:08
They are not being paid.
06:10
For us here, we are 100% funded by USID.
06:15
Wow.
06:16
So you lost all your money overnight?
06:18
All the money.
06:19
All the money went.
06:20
For how long will the current supplies that you actually have?
06:23
For the next two months.
06:24
But that's in jeopardy because you don't know if the supply will come.
06:27
Yeah, in case it doesn't come, then it means we have to close.
06:31
This worries their most vulnerable patients, like 19-year-old Alex.
06:37
What was it like, that moment when you learned that all the funding was cut?
06:44
Feeling like I wanted to drown myself because all my whole life I was getting my medicine
06:50
at Family Hope.
06:51
I first walked this whole city, just thinking, where can I get my medicine?
06:57
Alex is speaking to us anonymously because of the stigma around HIV-AIDS.
07:02
He is worried this is only going to increase as infections rise.
07:08
It's really hard being a victim of HIV.
07:11
It's like being a suspect of murder.
07:14
That crowd just pointing at you, calling you a walking dead because having HIV,
07:18
it feels like we're just a walking dead.
07:21
So they call you the walking dead if you have HIV?
07:25
I have HIV.
07:26
So for you, these funding cuts means no medicine, which means no future?
07:32
No future.
07:37
Gaps in treatment are a major concern for the staff, who warn of a surge in infections
07:42
and also drug-resistant HIV strains.
07:45
When you take your drugs well, you stay healthy.
07:49
But now when they default, because the drugs are not there,
07:52
it means they are going to get opportunistic infections like TB.
07:56
It means the virus in their body will replicate.
07:59
And we shall have more drug-resistant clients outside there.
08:03
They will also be taking the same virus that is already strained from Uganda to U.S.
08:07
and the trend will continue.
08:09
So let's be humane.
08:11
Let us consider to reverse that decision.
08:14
I know it's possible.
08:16
I know it's possible.
08:20
The most vulnerable will bear the brunt.
08:24
Rose contracted HIV from her violent alcoholic husband who raped her.
08:30
He later died from the disease, leaving her a penniless single mother of five.
08:36
Sex work was the only way to feed her children.
09:01
Rose worries without her medication, she risks spreading HIV,
09:05
especially as her symptoms have worsened.
09:16
What is your biggest fear right now?
09:18
She is a good person.
09:19
And she has been a good person.
09:20
She has been a good person.
09:21
She is a good person.
09:22
She is a good person, and she is a good person.
09:23
She is a bad person.
09:24
She is a bad person.
09:25
She is a good person.
09:26
But it's not just patients and medics who are confused about the future of PEPFER.
09:30
for. Even the officials once in charge of these projects are in the dark. We tried to
09:37
visit the offices of USAID in Jinja. Most of the staff had been sent home. The rest
09:44
were not permitted to speak to us because of the 90-day freeze.
09:47
So the sense I get is that the situation is super unclear. No one knows what's going to
09:54
happen, either at the end of the 90-day freeze or in the coming months and years.
10:01
On board Air Force One, the Independent asked President Trump himself about the fact that
10:07
HIV treatment is not getting to people despite the waiver being in place.
10:12
...I'm saying to my colleagues that they're still not getting medicines, and the U.N.A.
10:18
Well, that shouldn't be happening, but the other thing, other countries should be helping
10:22
us with that. And I'm a big fan of getting that solved. But, you know, we're the only
10:28
country. Where is France? Where is Germany? Where are these other countries? Nobody does
10:33
anything but the United States. And we spent, you know, billions and billions of dollars.
10:39
So they should be helping also. But, as you know, we did a waiver. You know that, right?
10:43
Right.
10:44
Well, I can't help that, because if we did a waiver, then you have to get your people to
10:49
act properly in the waiver. But I do ask, why are we the only country doing it?
10:54
The president is not engaged on this. It's just not on his radar. The State Department
11:00
says they're going to continue to run PEPFAR. But will it be the same large, widely successful
11:09
program that existed before Elon Musk took a meat ax to USAID?
11:18
This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.
11:22
No. The mechanisms for carrying out the program, those networks are atrophying with the demise
11:29
of USAID. And it's not clear how the administration intends to rebuild that capability.
11:42
The fear is a return to the grim days of babies born with HIV, of mass infections and death,
11:50
and even of a surge in children orphaned because of this pandemic.
12:02
It's not clear how it is. It's not clear how it is. It's not clear how it is.
12:18
Haja is HIV-positive, pregnant, and struggling to find medication for herself, but also to prevent
12:26
transmission to her unborn baby. The UN warns that if the programs are discontinued, there could be as
12:33
many as a million additional babies born with HIV over the next five years.
12:40
If you don't get these drugs, what will happen for you and also for your unborn child?
12:56
And this is another potential outcome predicted by the UN, that by 2030, there could be an additional
13:22
3.4 million children orphaned by HIV-AIDS. That is already a reality for Promise, who we join as she
13:32
does her rounds, checking on her HIV-positive patients in this Zimbabwe village. Like Grace in Uganda,
13:41
Promise is also a volunteer health worker whose patients have run out of medicine, with a deadly effect.
13:52
Then we want to show off it. Both children lost their parents to HIV-AIDS because they couldn't find
13:59
or afford their medicines. Can I ask about that little boy? What's your name?
14:04
My name is Nisa. Okay.
14:08
My name is Nisa.
14:10
My name is Nisa.
14:12
My name is Nisa.
14:16
My name is Nisa.
14:18
My name is Nisa.
14:20
My name is Nisa.
14:22
My name is Nisa.
14:24
My name is Nisa.
14:26
My name is Nisa.
14:28
My name is Nisa.
14:30
My name is Nisa.
14:32
My name is Nisa.
14:34
My name is Nisa.
14:36
My name is Nisa.
14:38
My name is Nisa.
14:40
My name is Nisa.
14:42
My name is Nisa.
14:44
With the abrupt halt of an aid, this has meant that the most vulnerable
15:12
have been able to get hold of medication and there is no backup plan and there are no
15:16
safety nets.
15:17
We just met two children whose parents died because they had no access to medication.
15:22
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
15:25
There will be more deaths.
15:26
There will be a surge in infections, which is painting a very bleak picture of the future.
15:37
Can you explain why people in the UK, in the US should care?
15:43
HIV and AIDS is still a global pandemic.
15:49
I've often said that there is no wall that can be built tall enough or no net that can
15:55
be thrown that is wide enough that can prevent HIV from coming into different borders.
16:02
HIV and AIDS knows no boundaries.
16:09
I don't have drugs to give him, I don't have food, I don't have other necessities to him,
16:18
so I'm almost helpless to him, he may die, any time he may die.
16:35
I don't think it's possible to go back to what was.
16:39
We have to collectively figure out how to move forward in the new reality.
17:02
you
17:03
show us
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is
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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you
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