Asia Russell, Executive Director of the Health Global Access Project (Health GAP) issued the following statement:
“President Trump’s proposal to cut over a billion dollars from the U.S. global HIV response in fiscal year 2019 shows how very out of touch he is with the American people and their values. Americans from across the political spectrum and every part of the country support the U.S. government’s long-standing leadership in funding life-saving HIV treatment and prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa and across the developing world.
“If this budget passes as proposed, Donald Trump’s legacy will be millions of new and unnecessary infections and deaths – and a massive resurgence in the AIDS pandemic.
“This is not a time to back down. U.S. funding for global AIDS programs has been critical in reducing deaths and new infections to the point where defeating AIDS is within reach. But after several years of flat funding from Congress, the response is running out of gas. At the very moment we should be on the brink of ending AIDS, Trump’s deadly budget would shift the global AIDS response into reverse.
“Congress should treat this proposal the way they treated the President’s first budget – by declaring it dead on arrival. Instead, Congress should uphold American leadership in the fight against HIV by providing urgently-needed funding increases for PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in the coming fiscal year.”
