\n<\/p>\n
US midterm voters overwhelmingly support Pepfar, an initiative to end HIV\/Aids that also has strengthened health systems against other infectious disease threats but has come under fire from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
About three in four (74%) likely voters in the US midterm elections say they support funding the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), with voters more likely to back candidates who support Pepfar, according to a recent poll. Four in five voters said there is a moral argument for supporting lifesaving treatment for people at risk for or living with HIV\/Aids, regardless of their personal choices.<\/p>\n
Among voters, \u201cit\u2019s going to be seen positively if Republicans or Democrats pursue Pepfar,\u201d said Jennifer Kates, the senior vice-president and director of the global and public health policy program at KFF, a health non-profit. These results align with other surveys showing the bipartisan popularity of the program, and a growing sense that the Trump administration is abdicating its international leadership even as outbreaks spiral out of control.<\/p>\n
First created by George W Bush in 2003, Pepfar has long enjoyed Republican leadership and bipartisan support. In recent months, Congress has repeatedly moved to preserve the program, but it is now essentially being replaced with individual agreements with countries that include but aren\u2019t heavily focused on HIV prevention and treatment.<\/p>\n
According to a 5 May announcement, the state department will keep nearly all of the funding intended for Pepfar, instead of splitting it with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC would only receive 7% of the funds \u2013 $150m, instead of a potential $2bn.<\/p>\n
It mirrors the dissolution of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its absorption into the state department last year, said Asia Russell, the executive director of Health Gap, an HIV\/Aids treatment advocacy organization: \u201cUSAID, that\u2019s already gone, right? That\u2019s like the East Wing of the White House cut off, essentially. Now they want to cut off the West Wing, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Domestically, the president\u2019s proposed budget also included a $1.6bn cut to HIV funding \u2013 mainly on prevention work.<\/p>\n
The continued support for Pepfar, even against a backdrop of economic instability, shows \u201cAmerica\u2019s compassion\u201d, said Michael Vazquez, the founder and managing partner of the Maiden Group, which conducted the polling. \u201cThere is a huge disconnect between some policymakers and the American public when you see that folks are as committed as ever to seeing Pepfar continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Economic issues are usually the driving force behind votes, Kates said. But positioning Pepfar as an economic issue \u2013 \u201cyou\u2019re helping people, you\u2019re doing good and you\u2019re helping American business\u201d \u2013 means \u201cit garners more support\u201d, she noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cVoters do not want to feel that their vote and their tax dollars are being directed away from things that make them proud to be an American,\u201d Vazquez said. \u201cDefunding Pepfar or cutting other critical global health programs is not something that inspires or excites voters.\u201d<\/p>\n
The poll results \u201cdefinitely support that Americans have been supportive of the US playing a role internationally\u201d, Kates said. \u201cThe idea that the US has helped people with HIV and people at risk for HIV in other countries has been seen as a morally important program and endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n
When respondents said they didn\u2019t know what Pepfar was and received more information about it, support increased.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmericans believe really strongly in US global health leadership around the world,\u201d Vazquez said.<\/p>\n
Yet Pepfar faces an increasingly uncertain future.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year was chaos. Now it\u2019s just a completely transforming landscape,\u201d Kates said. \u201cAll of these are ideas that have actually been out there in the development space for a while. It\u2019s just that they are now being implemented after a period of incredible disruption, and maybe at a pace that\u2019s going to raise risks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The switch to agreements with individual countries has also raised questions about extractive agreements and the ability to track where taxpayer dollars are going. The dramatic cuts to foreign aid are already showing up in an explosive Ebola outbreak that went undetected for weeks after significant funding lapses from the US.<\/p>\n
Pepfar hasn\u2019t just made astonishing progress on ending the HIV epidemic; it also built a platform for global pandemic detection and response, Russell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat lab capacity, human expertise, investment in surveillance \u2013 all of those components are part of that program that the state department is attempting to dissolve,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat state is attempting to do is stab a dagger in the heart of it in the midst of an uncontrolled, large, deadly outbreak of Ebola.\u201d<\/p>\n
Congress could create a law directing collaboration with the CDC in order to maintain some of this capacity, she said.<\/p>\n
The world has made progress on ending the HIV\/Aids epidemic \u2013 but letting up the momentum now could set that progress back, Kates said. And once that happens, it will be harder to address an uptick in cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s a surge in infections in particular places, that\u2019s something that\u2019s often not detected until it\u2019s too late,\u201d Kates added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US midterm voters overwhelmingly support Pepfar, an initiative to end HIV\/Aids that also has strengthened health systems against other infectious disease threats but has come under fire from the Trump administration. About three in four (74%) likely voters in the US midterm elections say they support funding the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[7764,562,3580,20084,17979,10739,1050,694,71,2980],"class_list":{"0":"post-49719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-backfire","9":"tag-cuts","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-hivaids","12":"tag-midterm","13":"tag-midterms","14":"tag-relief","15":"tag-support","16":"tag-trumps","17":"tag-voters"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}