Millions of HIV/AIDS patients, many of them in Africa, face an uncertain future as a financial cliff-edge for US-funded global programs fast approaches. In September, 120 funding awards for HIV/AIDS work carried out by the US Centers for Disease Control are set to expire, with no concrete replacement system in place.

Impact on Global Health

The programs provide services to more than 8.7 million patients worldwide, and it’s unclear what will happen to many patient services on the other side of October 1. The US State Department is restructuring the CDC’s work on global health initiatives to assume greater control.

The new guidance lays out a “streamlined” approach to the United States’ long-running HIV/AIDS initiative, called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was established by the Bush administration in 2003. PEPFAR is credited with saving more than 26 million lives and preventing millions of infections, mostly in Africa.

Concerns and Criticism

Multiple critics and experts have expressed concerns that the new approach will severely diminish the initiative’s effectiveness and sideline the health experts at CDC. The 120 US-financed awards for the CDC branch of PEPFAR are expected to end within weeks without replacement mechanisms in place.

The impacts are expected to vary greatly from country to country. Mozambique, Tanzania, and South Africa will be hit particularly hard by the funding cliff this year. The awards fund a range of services, including community testing, HIV clinical services, HIV lab services, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) medication, and more.

Original reporting: KEYT (Ventura/Santa Barbara) — read the source article.