PEPFAR funding pause risks HIV mutations and thousands of deaths worldwide

In the words of the clinical staff in Zambia, "Do you know what this means for Zambia?  We are dead people. Dead.  Cutting or pausing HIV treatment will kill thousands of people.  And in the time that people go off their drugs their HIV will become drug resistant.  So when they start again, it won't work.  Then they'll die.  So even if we get the program restarted eventually, by that point we'll have lost decades of prgress on the epidemic, and new strains for which no drugs exist will have spread like wild fire."  

Did we learn nothing from COVID?  Diseases dont stay within country borders.  This program funds our peace Corps grants that all the PC volunteers rely on.  This may even be more devastating to global health than the WHO cuts.  

The Trump administration's ignorance and greed is deadly.  The US can no longer be seen as a source of scientific wisdom and goodness. PEPFAR a bipartisan Republican created program needs to remain viable to protect our health and health around the globe.