“People will die,” when Trump’s U.S. Agency for International Development cuts drugs that threaten HIV, Canadian charity said in Kenya.
In Nanyuki, a market town in northwest of Kenya Hill, some foreign aid workers and volunteers worry about what everything that U.S. President Donald Trump has dismantled the U.S. international development agency means to the people there.
“It’s a worrying question. It’s a real question,” said Rex Taylor, co-founder and president of the small project, a registered Canadian charity that helps send kids to schools in rural Kenya.
“In my judgment, this will mean that people will die unnecessarily,” he told CBC News during his annual visit to Nanyuki.
According to the World Health Organization, Kenya has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, with Kenya ranked 11th in mid-2022 with a prevalence rate of 3.7%. According to nonprofits, about 1.4 million Kenyans are HIV-positive. The AIDS Research Foundation (Amfar) notes that about 1.3 million people in the country are receiving HIV/AIDS treatment.
According to Unaids, Kenya relies on direct U.S. funds for 29% of its HIV-related spending, the 10th largest country in the world.
Taylor said he was concerned that Trump’s freeze on foreign aid could cut off their chances of using antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), which prevented HIV from replicating in the body.
But Taylor in particular said he was concerned about Nanyuki’s 20-year-old aspiring culinary student Joseph Awoi. Taylor lives in Newmarket, Ontario and has supported Awoi’s education through small programs since he was a child.
In May, Awoi, a naturally deaf and HIV-positive orphan, will participate in Nairobi’s cooking program through this ongoing fund. Although his education funding has nothing to do with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Awoi relies on ARV, like many other Kenyans.
Taylor said he is sharing Awoi’s story to face the potential impact of the United States Agency for International Development’s cuts.
“This situation is still developing here. It’s under the radar and people aren’t thinking about it,” Taylor said.
“People need to know that due to the situation in their country and the circumstances of birth, some people don’t have the resources and if the threats eliminate them in the way we fear, they will mean they start getting sick.”
Humanitarian relief efforts in chaos
The Trump administration announced last week that it canceled nearly 10,000 foreign aid grants and nearly $60 billion contracts, ending 90% of U.S. International Development’s global work.
The closure of USAID is part of Elon Musk’s Ministry of Efficiency’s unprecedented reduction of the federal government. The sudden demise of aid agencies triggers global humanitarian relief Working to be confused.
Last Friday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was very concerned about the serious cuts in U.S. foreign aid, in a strong condemnation of what he said was “especially devastating” for the vulnerable people in the world.
“Through these cuts, the world will become less healthy, less secure and prosperous. The reduction in American humanitarian role and influence will contradict the interests of the global United States,” Guterres said in a statement to a reporter at the United Nations.
With the decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to freeze most foreign aid for 90 days, CBC’s Salimah Shijvi explores how these cuts make persecuted Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh (Cox) Bangladesh’s (the world’s largest shelter) harder.
Funding for the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other programs has been stopped, he said.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is primarily composed of AIDS relief from the U.S. president or humanitarian assistance from Pepfar to combat HIV in order to fight Kenya. According to the Associated Press, the U.S. government has spent more than $8 billion in HIV/AIDS treatment in Kenya through PEPFAR over the past two decades.
Last month, Margaret Odera, a community health worker living in Nairobi, wrote a request to LinkedIn, saying she was worried that the United States was “evacuating auxiliary countries like me from ARV supplies.”
“Many people are leading countries as leading countries and superpowers. Saving lives doesn’t make you poorer,” Audra wrote.
“We are praying for you.”
“What happens when the medication is used up?”
At the end of January, Kenya’s Ministry of Health issued a statement reaffirming its commitment to maintaining HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs.
“The ministry is actively interacting with other development partners and investing in local pharmaceutical manufacturing to prevent treatment disruptions,” said Dr. Patrick Amoth, Director-General of Health.
But without a strong contingency plan, “the sudden end of Pepfar funding will have devastating consequences,” wrote three professors of medical microbiology and infectious diseases in an article published in the conversation on February 24.
Assistant professors Julie Lajoie, Keith Fowke and PhD candidate Toby Le wrote that the University of Manitoba has worked with the Sex Worker Outreach Program (SWOP) and a local agency in Nairobi for 45 years.
Since 2003, the partnership with SWOP has been funded by Pepfar.
“This will no longer mean HIV testing, preventive treatment and antiretroviral therapy, which will increase the risk of transmission, resulting in increased cases and even greater deaths to HIV patients,” the professor wrote.
AUD workers who lost their jobs were given 15 minutes intervals at the box office Thursday to clear the table, a massive evacuation of the program. The last time the workers left the building, they cheered.
Taylor said that at nanoki, no one really knows what will happen next and is very worried. Taylor said he will continue to support AWOI if necessary, including payments for his medications through charities.
But he also fears that everyone else in Kenya might not be able to afford the antiretrovirals.
“There are a lot of kids – and a lot of adults,” Taylor said.
“What happens when the medication is used up?”
