US aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact
Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was
withdrawing all its funding
.
The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region
where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world
. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere.
But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home.
South Africa hit hard by aid cuts
South Africa has been hit especially hard because of
Trump's baseless claims
about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the
HIV-focused PEPFAR
.
Now that's gone.
Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future.
Significant advances have included clinical trials for
lenacapavir
, the world's only
twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV
, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans.
'We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer,' Gray said.
She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa played a crucial role by
testing
the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the
identification of an important variant
.
Labs empty and thousands are laid off
A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials.
Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job.
Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46%.
'It's very sad and devastating, honestly,' she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. 'We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent.'
Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response.
But now that momentum, he said, has 'all kind of had to come to a halt.'
The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk.
South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis — another disease with a high number of cases in the country.
Less money, and less data on what's affected
South Africa's government has said it will be
very difficult
to find funding to replace the U.S. support.
And now the number of
HIV infections
will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain.
At least 8,000 health workers
in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities.
For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools.
During a visit to South Africa in June,
UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima
was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large.
Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said.
'But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding,' Byanyima said.
___
Associated Press writer Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report.
___
For more on Africa and development:
https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse
The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's
standards
for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
AP.org
.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
Promising technologies are not yet ready to replace animal research
A recent op-ed in The Hill praising the National Institutes of Health's new initiative to promote human-based technologies as a 'major victory for animal ethics in science' oversimplifies a far more complex research landscape. While the piece correctly identifies growing support and development of innovative, non-animal approaches, it is misleading in its framing and overstates what this federal initiative actually signals about the future of animal research. Animal studies remain essential to both basic and translational science. From mapping brain circuitry to developing life-saving vaccines, the use of animal models has helped scientists uncover core biological mechanisms and test therapies with a degree of whole-organism complexity that no alternative system can yet match. Research involving animals has been directly responsible for major advances in treating cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes and countless other diseases. To suggest that NIH is ready to 'leave outdated animal experiments behind' is to paint an unrealistic picture of the current scientific landscape. It implies that non-animal alternatives are fully capable of replacing animal studies across the board. In reality, these technologies — while exciting and valuable — are still evolving and have significant limitations. This kind of oversimplification does a disservice not only to the scientific community but also to public understanding. Non-animal research methods such as organ-on-a-chip platforms, computational models and 3D bioprinting hold great promise. They offer different ways to model disease, study mechanisms of action and even predict certain aspects of human physiology. But they are not yet equipped to serve as wholesale replacements for animal research. Instead, they are powerful complementary tools that can be used alongside traditional models to enrich our understanding and refine research methods. This oversimplification misleads people into believing that animal and non-animal model research is either-or, when in most cases, these models work together to address different angles of a research question. Consider Emulate's liver chip. This sophisticated model includes four types of human liver cells and has demonstrated promising applications in toxicology and disease modeling. However, the human liver contains at least seven essential cell types, and critical components are missing from the liver chip. This means the model currently lacks the complexity needed to reliably replicate diseases that affect the entire liver, let alone multiple systems. While the technology shows potential, a recent study demonstrates that there are clear limitations, including the inability to perform long-term studies due to challenges in sustaining human liver cells over time. This is just one example of how non-animal models, although deserving of federal support, still have considerable progress to make before they can completely replace animals — a concept acknowledged by the developers of these technologies. Public trust in science has declined in recent years, leaving the research community with a responsibility to communicate scientific issues with clarity, honesty and appropriate context. However, comparing funding levels for animal models versus non-animal models is an ineffective and misleading way to provide transparency. Funding levels fluctuate from year to year for various reasons, including shifting priorities, new projects and the start or natural conclusion of existing studies. Public reporting of these numbers without further context fails to reflect the true complexity, value and potential outcomes of research. Instead, scientists should take opportunities to discuss the goals of their research, the rationale behind the methods and study design and how funding supports the broader mission of improving human and animal health. Using a variety of models helps to ensure that the best research is being done to benefit patients and their families. While organ-on-a-chip and other non-animal technologies show promise, their limitations prevent them from being a full replacement for many animal models. The development of non-animal methods should not come at the expense of the existing established models that still require animals. To sustain scientific progress and drive the next wave of medical breakthroughs, agencies like NIH should focus on funding the best research possible with the most appropriate available models. Alissa Hatfield, MS, is a science policy manager for the American Physiological Society. Naomi Charalambakis, Ph.D., is the director of communications and science policy at Americans for Medical Progress.
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
The deadly drug that's complicating US-China trade
Since US President Donald Trump – just days into his second term – began imposing tariffs on China for its role in the flow of deadly opioids like fentanyl into the United States, Beijing's message has been clear. The fentanyl crisis is the 'US's problem,' Chinese officials have repeatedly said, and China has already done 'tremendous work' to address the issue. 'We stand ready for practical cooperation with the US based on equality and mutual respect. That said, we firmly oppose the US pressuring, threatening and blackmailing China under the pretext of the fentanyl issue,' a spokesperson said in March, after Trump's fentanyl tariffs were raised to 20% on all Chinese imports into the US. But as those tariffs remain in place months later and, despite a truce de-escalating other duties, Beijing is signaling it's paying attention to the issue – and may be prepared to do more. China late last month announced it will add two more fentanyl precursors to its list of controlled substances – an expected step that brought it in line with international regulations, which its diplomats presented as a mark of 'active participation' in global drug control. Days earlier, Chinese authorities also extended control over another class of drug known as nitazenes – powerful synthetic opioids raising alarm among global health officials. The same day, Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong told US Ambassador to China David Perdue that Beijing was open to strengthening 'practical cooperation' on drug control. The Trump administration blames China for 'sustaining' the influx into the US of fentanyl, a lab-made, synthetic opioid dozens of times more potent than heroin. Abuse of the drug and its analogues has fueled a drug overdose crisis in the US, killing tens of thousands of Americans annually, though those numbers saw a significant drop last year. In Beijing's view, it's gone above and beyond international norms to stem the outflow of the drug and its component chemicals from its vast pharmaceuticals sector. In 2019 Beijing controlled fentanyl as a drug class – a significant move that drastically reduced the flow of the finished drug directly from China to the US, according to experts and US officials. It didn't take long for criminal networks to adapt, however. Chinese outfits shifted to selling precursor chemicals often to cartel-backed labs in Mexico, which then make and ship illegal fentanyl and similar drugs to the US. Chinese authorities have since controlled a number of these precursor chemicals. But experts and US officials say more could be done – as Beijing remains the largest source for products used to make illegal fentanyl and other synthetic drugs in Mexico and other countries. Chinese officials haven't explicitly linked their recent efforts at controlling two more of these substances to relations with the US, instead calling them another example of the 'goodwill China has shown,' and continuing to reject the premise of the US tariffs. But Beijing is likely expecting it will get credit for the latest moves in trade negotiations with the US. The question, however, is whether the steps will move the needle for Washington – and whether the two sides will be able to cooperate on the issue if their overall relations remain rocky. 'If Washington does not publicly recognize Chinese steps and show responsiveness to Beijing's own concerns, then bilateral law enforcement cooperation likely will falter going forward,' said Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. As US-China ties have chafed on everything from technology to China's militarization of the South China Sea, few issues have appeared more personal to American leaders than China's role as a producer of the drugs and chemicals fueling an opioid crisis in the US. During his first term, Trump hailed Chinese leader Xi Jinping's 'wonderful humanitarian gesture' of designating fentanyl a controlled substance in China. Some six years later, however, Trump began his second term accusing China of 'actively sustaining and expanding the business of poisoning our citizens' – an accusation vehemently denied by China. That message also contrasts with assessments from the US Drug Enforcement Agency which, in an annual report released in May, said fentanyl purity declined throughout 2024, consistent with indications that fentanyl cooks in Mexico were having trouble obtaining key precursor chemicals. That was as some China-based suppliers were 'wary of supplying controlled precursors … demonstrating an awareness on their part that the Chinese government is controlling more fentanyl precursors,' it said. Beijing's latest moves to control the two additional fentanyl precursors and nitazenes are positive actions that could have an impact on illicit drug supply chains, experts say. But they are also 'clever maneuvering' from China, according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution. A UN convention on illicit drugs added the two fentanyl precursors to its list of controlled substances last year, meaning signatory countries such as China must follow suit. China controlled a number of nitazenes in 2024 and the latest step, which expands those controls, was already in the works last fall, Felbab-Brown said. 'The Trump administration just reset the clock, did not recognize what China had already done and had committed to do, did not give China any credit for that. As a result, it also now is in a position where China can be promising to do exactly the same actions that it had promised to the Biden administration and use that as part of the bargaining,' Felbab-Brown said. A 'more effective posture' would have been to embrace China's efforts in 2024 and then ask it to fill in the 'substantial and impactful' holes in its drug control program, she added. Beijing has fiercely defended its record when it comes to controlling fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, releasing a 7,000-word white paper outlining its efforts in March, days after Trump imposed his second raft of fentanyl-linked tariffs. It has also balked at a Congressional report released last year accusing the ruling Chinese Communist Party of directly subsidizing the manufacture and export of illicit fentanyl materials and other synthetic narcotics through tax rebates. In China, where the Communist Party keeps a tight grip on all aspects of society, there's comparatively limited opioid abuse, according to official data – a situation Beijing uses to suggest the problem is about American appetite for the drug, not Chinese supply. That also means Chinese officials feel they've gone out of their way to work with Washington on a US domestic issue – efforts they see as being greeted first by a lack of American appreciation, and then by tariffs. Scientists in China on the front lines of identifying new precursors being used by criminal groups also point to reducing demand in the US as a key factor, given the challenges of controlling chemicals involved in synthesizing opioids. 'You really can't solve the fentanyl problem through control alone… the most fundamental issue is still reducing demand,' Hua Zhendong, deputy director of a drug analysis division at a counternarcotics laboratory under China's Ministry of Public Security, told CNN in an interview last September. He pointed to how some chemicals have widespread use in legitimate products, making them impractical to control, while chemicals used to make fentanyl can be easily adjusted to evade rules but still produce the product. 'It's always been like a cat-and-mouse game, because there could be thousands of potential substances for synthesizing fentanyl, we can't proactively control them all – we can only passively follow behind,' said Hua, whose lab was working regularly with US counterparts at the time of the interview to share information on emerging chemicals. Outside observers agree that US efforts to curb demand are critical for mitigating the opioid crisis. They note too that even if no chemicals came from China, fentanyl makers would look to other countries with large pharmaceuticals and chemicals industries, such as India. Des pite the challenges of enforcement in a vast sector where goods are often shipped in covert ways by busy air and sea routes, observers also say that more can be done in China. That includes tightening regulations to enable tougher punishments for people who sell controlled precursors to criminal groups or their middlemen unknowingly. Experts also say more could also be done to enforce existing regulations, especially in terms of how central government edicts are enforced by local authorities across China. 'Scheduling drugs and precursors that lead to the production of illegal drugs is one step of many needed in China,' said David Luckey, a senior international and defense researcher at RAND, a US-based think tank. 'I would suggest better still would be actually preventing Chinese companies from selling and distributing these harmful chemicals and drugs to criminal organizations in Mexico.' In addition to China, Trump placed tariffs on Mexico and Canada earlier this year, accusing them of not doing enough to curb migration and fentanyl trafficking, but carved out significant exemptions to those tariff rates. The US earlier this year designated Mexican cartels it alleges are involved in fentanyl trafficking as foreign terrorist organizations. 'China is a command economy with extreme control of its population – I think if the Chinese Communist Party didn't want Chinese companies doing this, the CCP could do more to stop it, and be more effective in stopping it,' Luckey said. An annual US State Department report on narcotics controls released in March described China's 'significant steps' working with the US last year to reduce precursor exports, which it said included cracking down on online platforms and companies selling them, making arrests, and adding 55 synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals to control lists. China's Ministry of Public Security last month said it had seized more than 1,400 tons of various precursor chemicals, and 151 related criminal cases were resolved in 2024. But authorities in China also acknowledge the scope of the problem, with a recent report noting that channels and means for smuggling chemicals out of the country 'were increasing' and 'constantly being updated,' creating 'greater challenges.' Beijing – which seeks to present itself as a responsible global player – has its own reasons for not wanting to be seen as an international purveyor of illicit drugs. But Chinese officials have long linked cooperation with the US on the issue to the health of the broader relationship. China cut off drug control cooperation completely in August 2022 in retaliation for then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. It then took a friendly summit between Xi and former US President Joe Biden in late 2023 to get collaboration back on track. This time around, China has bristled at the Trump administration's off-the-bat imposition of tariffs, saying it 'undermines' cooperation. The White House did not respond to a CNN request for comment on China's latest control steps. 'If the US truly wants to cooperate with China, it should face up to the objective facts, correct its wrongdoing, and seek dialogue with China,' a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said last month when asked whether those measures were done in cooperation with the US or at its behest. But Beijing is also keenly aware that the current tariffs are hitting at a time when China's economy has already been struggling with domestic challenges – and there's no certainty those duties couldn't rise again under Trump's capricious trade policy. 'Since the 20% tariff is specifically linked to cooperation on fentanyl, the Chinese might be hoping for a package deal that includes trade, counternarcotics, among other things,' said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington. 'The Chinese hope to remove the 20% tariff … (and are) eager to get President Trump to visit China this year, so they need to work out good progress,' she said.
9 hours ago
US aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact
JOHANNESBURG -- Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR. Now that's gone. Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future. Significant advances have included clinical trials for lenacapavir, the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans. 'We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer,' Gray said. She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa played a crucial role by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the identification of an important variant. A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials. Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job. Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46%. 'It's very sad and devastating, honestly," she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. 'We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent.' Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response. But now that momentum, he said, has 'all kind of had to come to a halt.' The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk. South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis — another disease with a high number of cases in the country. South Africa's government has said it will be very difficult to find funding to replace the U.S. support. And now the number of HIV infections will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain. At least 8,000 health workers in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities. For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools. During a visit to South Africa in June, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large. Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said. 'But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding," Byanyima said. ___
