Over 16,000 estimated dead due to USAID funding cut of Pepfar in Africa.
14,721 Adults Dead
1,567 Infants Dead
Great FT article on USAID cuts in Africa and the effects it's having on HIV treatment.
This shit is so depressing man, to see the same people who cheered for Live Aid be responsible for this heart-breaking situation is fucking appalling. Evil Fucking Cunts, the lot of them.
Some highlights:
"Once Samkelo accepted the terrifying truth, he stopped doomscrolling on Facebook, lay on his bed and considered his options. The first thing he did was bring out the bottles and sachets of pills that were in his bedside drawer. He counted them out: 62 pink ones, 62 yellow ones and 62 white ones. Enough antiretrovirals to suppress the HIV virus in his body for two months and two days."
"The initiative changed the trajectory of the Aids pandemic. To date, Pepfar has saved more than 26 million lives and prevented roughly 1,000 babies a day from being born with the HIV virus."
"In South Africa, which has 7.8mn people living with HIV, and the largest Pepfar portfolio in the world, promising trials of next-generation treatment have been halted. Each month of shutdown will mean almost 230 babies being born with HIV as pregnant women lose access to their medication, according to one estimate*.* One-third of those infants is unlikely to survive past their first birthday."
Rubio dismissed calls for clarification. “I would say, if some organisation is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organisation, or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point,”