Overview

• Draft State Department papers outline a 42 percent cut to PEPFAR’s $4.7 billion budget and aim to wind down emergency HIV relief in some countries within two years.
• The proposed transition would swap broad HIV treatment and prevention services for bilateral disease-surveillance partnerships designed to detect outbreaks and expand U.S. pharmaceutical markets.
• Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joined Democratic colleagues last week to restore a nearly eliminated $400 million cut and avert an immediate funding crisis.
• State Department and PEPFAR officials maintain that the plan remains an unapproved draft and that no final policy changes have been adopted.
• FDA approval of the twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir and Gilead’s licensing of generics for low-income nations offer a biomedical pathway to reduce reliance on emergency relief.