11-03-2025
Fear grows in Kenya for HIV patients as US aid cut halts drugs
STORY: At a children's home in Kenya's capital Nairobi, children living with HIV/AIDS play.
But the staff here fear for their future, as U.S. aid cuts threaten to disrupt their vital drug supply.
President Donald Trump's 90-day foreign aid freeze has upended the global supply chain for drugs to fight diseases including HIV.
But it's also blocked the distribution of drugs that long ago reached their destination countries.
The manager of Nyumbani Children's Home, Sister Tresa Palakudy, is concerned about access to life-saving HIV meds called antiretrovirals - or ARVs.
'What we are most afraid of is immediately they stop ARVs then the worst thing will happen here. Because if you stop ARVs for these children, there is drug resistance, afterwards they will get all kinds of opportunistic infections then we lose them one by one.'
The executive director of the home said that if they start purchasing ARVs, a rough estimate is $120 per child per month.
And that's without other drugs including TB medication and food supplements.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the city, millions of doses of ARVs sit on the shelves of a warehouse, unused and unreachable.
A Kenya health official said without U.S. funding, distribution of the $34 million worth of medication sitting there has ceased.
:: File
An ex-USAID executive said this stock, which Washington has not released funds to distribute, includes 2.5 million bottles of ARVs, 750,000 HIV test kits and 500,000 malaria treatments.
In the meantime, Kenya is scrambling to fill the gaps.
'We are dependent on treasury to release funds…'
Kenya's Health Minister Deborah Barasa said she expected her government to mobilize funds to allow the supplies to be released within two to four weeks.
But it is not yet clear whether the government had allocated the money to do so.
Kenyan Christian charity MEDS that runs the warehouse and the U.S. State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
