Pepfar-funded HIV projects in SA

Pepfar-funded HIV organisations in SA, who receive their funds through the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, woke up to letters that were sent overnight telling them their grants have been ended – permanently.

Pepfar, the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids, is an Aids fund that was launched in 2003 to help fight Aids in countries with high HIV infection rates such as SA. The country has since received around $8-billion (about R145bn) of which $439,537,828 (about R8.1bn) was for the current US financial year, which stretches from October 1 2024 to September 30 2025.

USAID-funded district health projects, supported outside of Pepfar, but with other US government funds administered by USAID, have also been instructed to close down. 

The Anova Health Institute, the organisation in SA which receives the most Pepfar funding, lost all its funding, a senior Anova Health Institute official confirmed. Anova helped to test people for HIV and make treatment available in under-staffed government clinics. 

TB programmes funded through USAID also report having received such letters. Letters were also sent to partners of the Accelerating Programme Achievements to Control the Epidemic (Apace), which include large nonprofits such as the Wits Reproductive Health Institute, Broadreach Healthcare and Right to Care.

The Apace projects conducted HIV testing, got people who tested positive onto treatment, got HIV-negative people who needed it onto preventive anti-HIV pills, increased children’s access to HIV treatment and also tested and treated people for TB, the most common illness that people with HIV get when not on treatment.