PRESS STATEMENT
For Immediate Release: April 17, 2025
Contact: Asia Russell, +1 267 475 2645 | press@healthgap.org
(Washington, DC) On the morning of April 17, AIDS activist pallbearers, dressed in black, delivered 206 coffins to the headquarters of the U.S. State Department, protesting Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s gutting of funding and political support for the U.S. government’s global HIV program, PEPFAR, which has saved more than 26 million lives across 50 countries. Rubio announced an immediate halt to all PEPFAR programs as part of his January 24 foreign aid “stop-work order.”
Almost 90 days later, PEPFAR’s treatment and prevention programs are facing continued disruption: HIV clinics have shuttered, programs serving key populations have been gutted, HIV medicines and diagnostics are out of stock, and thousands of health workers have been fired across sub Saharan Africa. Also gutted are PEPFAR’s HIV prevention programs, including funding to reach millions of people, particularly sex workers, LGBTQ+ people, drug users, and young women with long-acting antiviral drugs for HIV prevention: injectable lenacapavir and cabotegravir. These revolutionary new products are nearly 100% effective in stopping HIV infection through pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
Activists processed in front of the Harry S Truman building of the State Department with the coffins while a drum corps played a funeral dirge. Each coffin represented 100,000 lives at risk, totalling the 20 million adults and children that PEPFAR supports with life-saving HIV treatment. The protest comes ahead of the 90-day anniversary of the stop-work order, and amidst leaked FY26 draft budget proposals by Trump Administration officials to cut PEPFAR by 40% and rescind billions in Congressionally appropriated FY25 global HIV and health funding.
Recent analysis has shown that, among the 570 PEPFAR-specific awards that had flowed through USAID before Trump took office, only 83 awards remain active, representing 58% of USAID’s funding allocated from PEPFAR. Medicines procurement experts have predicted lifesaving drugs for babies with HIV and adults who are sick with AIDS will stock out in weeks in countries representing the majority of PEPFAR’s portfolio. “When he was a Senator from Florida, Rubio was the first to celebrate PEPFAR’s successes,” said Charles King, Executive Director of Housing Works. “Millions of lives are on the line, and we are facing an HIV prevention and treatment catastrophe created by his own hypocritical policy decisions.”
“Does Marco Rubio want to be remembered as a Secretary of State who chose cowardice while PEPFAR was decimated and millions faced risk of death?” said Asia Russell, Executive Director of Health GAP. “Because that is the path he is choosing.”
“If these cuts to PEPFAR continue from Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and the MAGA regime, their legacy will be the deaths of millions of people across the world,” said Matt Rose, senior public policy advocate for the Human Rights Campaign. “This country’s global health leadership is not an expendable entity to cut—it’s what provides us strength around the world and helps keep outbreaks from spreading worldwide. Time is running out—we need to restore this vital funding so we can end the global HIV/AIDS epidemic once and for all.”
“The coffins we are carrying today represent the 20 million people whose lives have been put at risk by Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.” said Peter Staley, AIDS activist. “Does President Trump even realize his legacy will be the worst chapter in the AIDS crisis — a relaunching of the pandemic that adds millions of infections and avoidable deaths, just as we were in reach of ending it?”
“Many people I’ve spoken with in these impacted countries have been cut off because of this reckless decision. This is not a policy pause—it’s a death sentence for millions. Marco Rubio presides over the collapse of one of the most successful global health programs in history,” said Charles King, CEO of Housing Works. “If the U.S. allows PEPFAR to crumble, history will not be kind. It will remember that we had the power to stop an epidemic from reigniting—and chose not to. We must fully restore PEPFAR and renew our commitment to global health and human dignity.”
Organized by Housing Works, Health GAP, Human Rights Campaign and a coalition of global health and HIV/AIDS activists, the action’s audio and visual components were conceived by Peter Staley, the long-time AIDS activist known for putting a giant condom over Senator Jesse Helms’s house, one of the most iconic moments in AIDS protest history.
“PEPFAR is not just a health program—it’s a proven example of what makes America great: our ability to lead with compassion, deliver results, and save lives across continents,” said Dr Jirair Ratevosian, former PEPFAR Chief of Staff. “This is no time to turn our back on one of America’s most effective and respected global efforts.”
ENDS
