At least 8. Africa correspondent YousraElbagir. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player. A woman walks up to the security guards outside a shuttered USAID-funded sexual health clinic in Johannesburg's inner-city district. On the day he was sworn in as US president for a second time, Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing foreign aid for a day period.
That is being challenged by federal employee unions in court over what it says are "unconstitutional and illegal actions" that have created a "global humanitarian crisis". Her eyes tear up as she processes the news. Like many sex workers in town, free sexual health clinics are her lifeline. A HIV-positive sex worker shared her patient transfer letter from the same closed clinic with Sky News and told us with panic that she is still waiting to be registered at an alternative facility.
Widespread, free access to antiretroviral treatment in southern Africa was propelled by the introduction of George W. PEPFAR is considered one of the most successful foreign aid programmes in history, and South Africa is the largest recipient of its funds. The programme has now been halted by President Trump's foreign aid funding freeze - plunging those who survived South Africa's HIV epidemic and AIDS denialism in the early s back to a time of scarcity and fear.
The government would tell us to take beetroot and garlic. It was very difficult for the government to give us treatment but we fought very hard to win this battle. Now, the challenge is that we are going back to the struggle," says Nelly Zulu, an activist and mother living with HIV in Soweto. Nelly says access to free treatment has saved her and her year-old son, who tested positive for HIV at four years old.
I don't want them to go through what I went through - the life I was facing before. I'm scared we will go back to that crisis. Analysis: Why Trump has threatened to cut off all future funding to South Africa. South African civil society organisations have written a joint open letter calling for their government to provide a coordinated response to address the healthcare emergency created by the US foreign aid freeze.
