HIV/AIDS
New focus in US relief policy, but SA will still get assistance
The US government will continue to make substantial investments in SA to help control its HIV/AIDS epidemic, despite a policy shift in which the US will concentrate its support on 13 other high-burden countries. The assurance is important — although SA funds the bulk of its HIV/AIDS programmes itself, the scale of the epidemic means international donors, of which the US is the biggest, play a critical role by providing 18.5% of the money available for programmes for the 2017-18 fiscal year, most of which comes from the US president’s emergency programme for HIV/AIDS relief. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced a new strategy for the programme in which the US will focus its efforts on 13 high-burden countries that have the best chance of controlling their HIV epidemics by 2020. SA is not on this list. The US relief programme will support 50 countries in total and will maintain life-saving treatment for the people it currently supports. The overall funding availab...
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