Latest news with #NoziphoMlotshwa
CTV News
13-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
U.S. aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact
A laboratory technician Nozipho Mlotshwa works on samples at the Wits laboratory Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit, at University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, in Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) JOHANNESBURG — Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the US$46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as U.S. President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa hit hard by aid cuts South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR. Now that's gone. Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future. Significant advances have included clinical trials for lenacapavir, the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans. 'We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer,' Gray said. She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa played a crucial role by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the identification of an important variant. Labs empty and thousands are laid off A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials. Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job. Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46 per cent. 'It's very sad and devastating, honestly,' she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. 'We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent.' Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response. But now that momentum, he said, has 'all kind of had to come to a halt.' The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk. South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis — another disease with a high number of cases in the country. Less money, and less data on what's affected South Africa's government has said it will be very difficult to find funding to replace the U.S. support. And now the number of HIV infections will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain. At least 8,000 health workers in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities. For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools. During a visit to South Africa in June, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large. Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said. 'But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding,' Byanyima said. Associated Press writer Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report. The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at Mogomotsi Magome, The Associated Press
Reuters
18-02-2025
- Health
- Reuters
South African scientists were testing a promising HIV vaccine. Then came Trump's aid cuts
JOHANNESBURG, Feb 18 (Reuters) - South African lab technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was waiting for the test results for a potential HIV vaccine, which has eluded scientists for decades, when the order came from USAID to stop work. The first round of vaccines she and her colleagues made in Johannesburg had produced an immune response in rabbits, which was promising but not conclusive - so they tweaked the formula and sent off four new versions for pre-clinical tests. "This was very exciting. We were getting quite good results," Mlotshwa, 32, told Reuters in the lab in the Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit at the city's University of the Witwatersrand. Now the animal blood samples containing their results are sitting untouched in a freezer. A trial of an earlier, separate vaccine candidate, which was about to be tested on humans in South Africa as well as Kenya and Uganda, is also on ice. Both trials are among the casualties of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). They are part of a wider South African-led HIV vaccine development scheme known as BRILLIANT and funded entirely by a $45 million grant from USAID. It is unclear if or when the project could resume. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "It feels like you're building something and you could really make a huge difference," Nigel Garrett, Chief Scientific Officer at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, a partner in the project, said. "And then it's wiped away." The project is one of many research efforts worldwide to be hit by Trump's actions since taking office last month. Others include halting efforts to protect food crops from pests and diseases and blocking publication of a paper on the mpox outbreak. 'HOLY GRAIL' HIV's ability to mutate quickly has confounded efforts to create a vaccine ever since it was first identified in 1983. The researchers in Johannesburg are using the mRNA technology that created some COVID-19 vaccines. Several other mRNA-based HIV vaccine candidates worldwide have reached clinical trials. BRILLIANT is unique in being Africa-led, aiming to develop capacity for producing vaccines in Africa. For the past year the Johannesburg team had been working with genetic sequences from two South African patients who have HIV but whose bodies produce a rare type of antibody that neutralizes the virus. They are trying to simulate that immune response. "We were gaining momentum," said Patrick Arbuthnot, director of the research unit, adding: "an HIV vaccine is the holy grail of the field". Trump in January ordered a 90-day pause in all foreign development assistance pending assessment of its consistency with his "America First" foreign policy. Separately, he has targeted South Africa with an executive order to cut all funding to the country, citing disapproval of its land reform policy and its genocide case against U.S. ally Israel. The U.S. foreign aid freeze has affected programmes across the globe, stranding shipments of life-saving medical supplies, including HIV drugs, and leaving disaster response teams unable to deploy. Waivers for "life-saving humanitarian assistance" have been hampered. 'GOOD FOR THE WORLD' Because South Africa has the world's largest population of people living with HIV, at more than 8 million, it is a hub for research on the virus. "Most of the landmark and groundbreaking studies have been conducted in this country. But these have been good for the whole world," said Ntobeko Ntusi, CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, which is spearheading the HIV vaccine search. Ntusi said he did not expect funding for projects like BRILLIANT to resume, given the executive order on aid to South Africa. The council gets about a third of its funding from U.S. federal sources, for research that is mostly on HIV and tuberculosis but covers other areas including maternal and infant mortality and antimicrobial resistance, he said. Garrett said the shot that was ready for testing on humans was a mix of two vaccine substances developed in the United States and the Netherlands which have shown promise but never been tested together. They are now sitting in storage. "We had a huge opportunity, good funding. It's difficult for other funders to fill that gap," he said. Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here.
