In 2025, approximately 77,000 fewer children received HIV treatment than the year before. That decline follows the Trump administration's decision to halt the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) shortly after taking office in January 2025. In India and South Africa, the drop exceeded 45 percent. For children living with HIV, losing access to medication can be immediately life-threatening: they deteriorate rapidly without treatment, according to researchers at the Clinton Health Access Initiative.

The broader damage is documented in two new studies to be presented at the International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro. According to a survey by the HIV charity amFAR, three-quarters of PEPFAR-funded organizations stopped providing services to people at the highest risk of HIV, including sex workers, transgender individuals, and injectable drug users. At least 1,700 treatment sites have closed and more than 16,000 health workers have lost their jobs. The true scope is likely several times larger, as the survey covered only a quarter of all PEPFAR recipients.

Launched under President George W. Bush in 2003, PEPFAR is credited with saving 26 million lives in more than 50 countries, built over two decades of bipartisan support. The State Department dismissed the new research as "flawed" and claimed the cuts had "strengthened" the program. Some Republican senators have already pledged to push back.

Congress can restore PEPFAR funding. Sign to demand Congress act now, before more children lose access to the medication that keeps them alive.