By Jennifer Rigby and Vincent Mumo Nzilani
LONDON/NAIROBI, July 21 (Reuters) - Around 77,000 fewer children worldwide received HIV treatment supported by the U.S. in the year to October 2025 than in the previous fiscal year, according to a study that found declines after the Trump administration's cuts and changes to foreign aid.
The study refers only to U.S.-supported care, and some of the children may have received treatment through national governments or other donors.
The analysis of U.S. government
data found U.S.-supported paediatric HIV treatment fell by around 14% year-on-year, although the researchers said more detailed country-level data were needed to assess the full impact.
“These are signals, not a verdict. But children cannot wait,” said Kenneth Ngure, professor of global health at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and a co-author of the study, presented at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday.
Other studies, including by UNAIDS, have also shown gaps in the HIV response since the cuts.
The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
DECLINE IN U.S.-BACKED TREATMENT
To reach their conclusions, Ngure and team analysed data provided by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the international U.S. HIV programme. They found a decline in U.S.-supported paediatric treatment in 20 of 21 countries analysed.
Other agencies and national governments may have stepped in to keep children on treatment, and the decline in coverage is also slightly lower if "central support", or U.S. funding for national or sub-national level work, rather than at clinics, is included: around 55,000 fewer children were reached last year under that metric.
The countries were chosen because they all had more than 2,000 children receiving PEPFAR-supported HIV treatment, the team said.
South Africa saw the largest absolute decline of around 30,000 fewer supported children, or 45%, followed by Zimbabwe, Kenya and Malawi.
The team also found that the declines were steeper than predicted trajectories in five countries analysed: Uganda, Haiti, Zambia, South Africa and Kenya.
'FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS'
Health advocate Susan Wairimu Metta, who works with HIV-affected communities in Kisumu West, Kenya – the Kenyan area with the highest HIV prevalence rates outside Nairobi – said she recognised the picture painted by the new study.
“The funding cuts have had a real impact on paediatric HIV care in Kenya,” she said.
She said a decline in the availability of community support groups as well as new charges for tests that were previously free made it harder for families to stay fully engaged in care. This has led to a rise in the number of children presenting with advanced HIV in her region, she said.
The worst impact was during the initial period last year when the U.S. issued “stop work” orders as it began to dismantle parts of its international aid programme, she said, but the situation has improved since then, in part because the Kenyan government has trained staff to help fill gaps.
“But many of the community-based support systems that prevented children from falling through the cracks have still not been fully replaced,” she added.
(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby, Editing by William Maclean)
