[Source: Reuters]

Emmanuel Cherem, a 25-year-old gay man in Nigeria, tested positive for HIV two months after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration cut access for at-risk groups like gay men and injecting drug users to medication that prevents infection.

Cherem admits he should have been more careful about practicing safe sex but had become accustomed to using the U.S.-supplied pharmaceutical.

The drug – known as Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP – is typically taken daily as a tablet and can reduce the risk of contracting HIV through sex by 99%.

“I blame myself… Taking care of myself is my first duty as a person,” Cherem said at his gym in Awka, the capital of Nigeria’s southeastern state of Anambra.

“I equally blame the Trump administration because, you know, these things were available, and then, without prior notice, these things were cut off.”

Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid after taking office in January and halted grants by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The agency was responsible for implementing the bulk of the assistance under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the world’s leading HIV/AIDS initiative.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic. Trump’s cuts have restricted the availability of drugs that millions of Africans have taken to prevent infection – particularly vulnerable communities such as gay men and sex workers – as aid groups and public health systems in Africa strove to roll back the disease.

The number of initiations, or people who have taken at least one dose of the drug, rose in Africa from fewer than 700 in 2016 to more than 6 million by late 2024, according to PrEPWatch, opens new tab, a global tracker. More than 90% of new initiations last year were financed by PEPFAR, using cheap generic versions of the drug.

Sub-Saharan Africa had 390,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2023, or 62% of the global total, according to UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS agency. However, progress has been made: that death toll was down by 56% from 2010, according to the World Health Organization.

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