Kampala, Uganda – Clinics that provide drugs to people with HIV / AIDS, as well as drugs that prevent the transmission of virus, closed here this week while the United States has stopped almost all of the foreign development aid .
“These services are no longer. All the staff of the clinic have been terminated, “explains Macklean Kyomya, executive director of the Alliance of Women pleading for the change, which led a center without an appointment that provided HIV / AIDS tests, advice , antiretroviral treatments and other critical services.
Kyomya says that his organization received a letter on February 4 from his funder on February 4, the Institute of Infectious Diseases based in Uganda, which all the money had disappeared. The Institute obtained its funding from the American Agency for International Development, known as the USAID.
US President Donald Trump delivered a decree On January 20, his first day of power, which suspended almost all international aid for a 90 -day exam period. This includes the work of the State Department of the USAID and the United States, which together administer vital health services worldwide. This includes the US president’s massive emergency plan for the AIDS (PEPFAR) rescue program, which since its creation in 2003 has provided medicines and vital services to prevent the spread of HIV / AIDS and to treat infected people .
On January 28, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has issued an exemption To allow certain “existing humanitarian assistance programs to continue”, but it is difficult to know which, if necessary, the HIV / AIDS rescue services will continue under this renunciation. It is also difficult to know whether the financing of the programs will resume after the 90 -day exam period. Questions sent by Global Press Journal to the US State Department did not receive an answer.
According to the United Nations, approximately 1.5 million Ugandans live with HIV / AIDS, and around 1.2 million people take antiretroviral drugs – many of which are provided thanks to American funding.
It is the same thing around the world: more than 20 million people, including more than half a million children, receive antiretroviral treatment in 55 countries via Pepfar. The situation in Uganda is only snapshot of the emerging crisis which only worsened as people lose access to the drug they need to remove or resist the contraction of the virus.
Flavia Kyomukama, executive director of the National Forum of People living with HIV networks in Uganda, broadcast a message on WhatsApp this week to urge health workers to say to patients to fill their antiretroviral medicine prescriptions.
The message warned that all patients should go to health clinics “before closing themselves because health workers in these establishments have started to pack their bags”.
The supplies and human resources provided by the United States have already been cut, explains Robert Kiwanuka, program director at Muvubuka Agunjuse in Kampala, who provided free treatment to young people, as well as sex workers and living people with HIV positive partners.
“Some have started to come, to approach us, to say to us:” What is the next step? ” “, Said Kiwanuka.
People have told him that even if they could have medication, they don’t know what they will do in the coming months.
The impact will be disastrous, says Kyomya.
“The key populations will go underground,” she says. “We are likely to have new cases of HIV and those on (antiretroviral therapy) will develop resistance if they do not obtain in time.”
Any break in the distribution of antiretroviral drugs could be catastrophic, explains Julie Fischer, research professor associated with the Center for Global Health Science and Security at the University of Georgetown.
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There is often a very narrow window of time during which the drug is most effective in preventing HIV infection, she says. For infants in particular, she adds, a treatment to ensure that they do not get parents’ HIV with the virus must occur quickly-usually in a few hours.
According to the UNIDA, almost all pregnant women in Uganda who have HIV / AIDS receive treatment which prevents the transmission of the virus to their babies.
If this number drops, says Fischer, there will be large long -term damage.
“These consequences can wave for years, not only for exposed people who are not lucky enough to be treated, but also for their families and their communities.”
The stories of people looking for clinical services tell the despair that leads adults and adolescents to situations where they risk contracting HIV.
Hadijja Nalubega was only 15 years old when her mother fell ill and could no longer work. She says that she tried to find a job to support her family, but could not, so she settled for a last resort: she exchanged sex for money. She used the money to buy food and pay for the tuition fees of her sisters.
Now aged 20, she has received free reproductive health services for years in Muvubuka Agunjuse. Once, she said, she had sex with a man who looked bad.
“He gave me a lot of money,” she said. “In the morning, I rushed to the clinic.”
There, she adds, the health workers have given him medication against the PEP-post-exposure prophylaxis-that she believes to prevent him from contracting the virus.
With the steep end of services, she said: “We suffered.”