Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has welcomed six-months of HIV/Aids funding under the PEPFAR Bridge Plan (PBP), saying it is a reflection of healthy bilateral relations between Pretoria and Washington.

The renewed support follows months of financial strain after the Trump administration abruptly halted foreign aid allocations in January, disrupting key public-health projects across southern Africa and forcing National Treasury to reallocate funds to prevent treatment gaps.

Ntshavheni told journalists during a post-cabinet briefing on Thursday that the country had been “caught off guard” by the sudden funding cut, leaving the government with no time to “balance the books.” She said South Africa lodged a formal complaint with Washington over the abrupt suspension.

“The Trump administration has now listened and approved funding to the tune of $115 million between 1 October 2025 and 31 March 2026,” Ntshavheni said, adding that cabinet welcomed the six-month approval as a positive step toward restoring confidence and continuity in the country’s HIV/Aids programme.

“The PBP is meant to ensure uninterrupted HIV service delivery in South Africa by supporting HIV/Aids service continuity and prioritising country-specific needs and life-saving impact,” she said.

The bridge plan is a transitional funding phase to keep HIV services operational until full programme renewal is finalised. It allows for the continuation of critical, life-saving HIV programmes while the broader long-term agreement is being renegotiated.

“Cabinet expressed its appreciation to the government of the United States of America on its commitment to supporting and sustaining progress in the fight against HIV/ Aids,” she said.

The approval of the finance “confirms the good bilateral relations between South Africa and the USA. [When we complained] they intervened and we found an amicable solution to the problem,” she said.

Relations between Pretoria and Washington soured earlier this year after the Trump administration announced a 30% reciprocal tariff on South African imports, prompting President Cyril Ramaphosa to lead a delegation to the White House to try to reset ties.

At that meeting and in surrounding rhetoric, Trump pressed false claims that South Africa’s white minority — particularly farmers — were being systematically targeted, a narrative widely debunked by mainstream fact-checkers and international media. Ramaphosa used the engagement to rebut those assertions and to argue for de-escalation on trade and aid.

Separately, civil society groups AfriForum and the Solidarity Movement have publicly lobbied U.S. officials on South African policy and minority-rights issues. Following those Washington engagements, South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) confirmed they were probing four dockets of alleged high treason tied to complaints about “spreading misleading information” abroad. Both groups deny wrongdoing and say the cases are baseless.

Ntshavheni also said at the briefing that cabinet was updated on the proposed rollout of HIV prevention drug Lenacapavir, scheduled for release in March or April 2026.

“The initial rollout will focus on 23 high-incident districts across six provinces, targeting approximately 360 high-performing public clinics within these areas. The rollout will further bolster government’s fight against HIV and Aids and our goal to reduce new HIV infections to below 0.1% by 2032,” she said.

Lenacapavir has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a twice-yearly injectable for HIV prevention (pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP) in adults and adolescents.

Ntshavheni said cabinet welcomed Eskom’s return to profitability after the entity reported a R16 billion profit for the financial year ending March 2025. The profit was testament to its turnaround progress, she added.

“This milestone comes at a time when the country has marked another extended period without load shedding, over 150 consecutive days… which is a clear indication that South Africa’s electricity supply is stabilising.”

She said Eskom was now prioritising the elimination of load reduction in the next 12 – 18 months. She said load reduction was currently implemented to safeguard critical infrastructure in areas affected by high energy losses and illegal connections.

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The Democratic Alliance wants Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi to appear before the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health to account regarding government’s efforts to find alternative funding sources to replace the lost PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) funding from the United States.

Media reports have revealed a dire financial situation facing the SA Medical Research Council and the department’s apparent haphazard response regarding the funding crisis.

“It seems that the one hand is in the dark about what the other is doing. The Department has seemingly claimed that a Section 16 application to Treasury for emergency funding has yet to be submitted, while also being in discussions with Treasury regarding funding but failing to submit detailed plans on how it would be spent,” SA health spokesperson Michele Clarke said on Sunday.

“This while studies found the PEPFAR funding suspension could result in 150,000 to 295,000 HIV infections in the next three years in South Africa and one million more infections in Sub-Saharan children by 2030, leading to estimated deaths of 500,000 children and resulting in more than two million children being orphaned.”

Clarke said it was clear that the minister could not be trusted to lead an organised effort. He needed Parliamentary oversight to ensure that the country’s fight against HIV/Aids stayed on track.

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A delegation of the Solidarity Movement, AfriForum and Solidarity, which is opposed to South Africa’s new land laws, is meeting senior representatives of US President Donald Trump’s administration at the White House in Washington DC.

This follows Trump offering white Afrikaners land in the US and freezing aid to South Africa over the Expropriation Act and South Africa’s stance on Israel. The rift between SA and the US has also put the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa) at risk.

Many of the farmers, who Trump is claiming to protect, will be negatively impacted if the Act is not renewed next year.

Various conciliatory gestures from South Africa have been made, but Trump and his administration are not budging.  

According to a statement, the delegation is asking US officials to intensify pressure on African National Congress leaders for policy change instead of suspending South Africa’s participation in Agoa.

Solidarity Movement chairperson Flib Buys claimed that there was a lack of urgency from the South African government to restore diplomatic relations and this was “creating a growing crisis for South Africa”.

He said about half a million workers with about two million dependents directly depended on South Africa’s participation in Agoa, and this was why Solidarity was opposed to South Africa being kicked out of Agoa.

A research report on the importance of Agoa for ordinary South Africans has been handed over to government officials in Washington.

The movement also requested that humanitarian aid to South Africa, such as the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief start again, following Trump’s cancellation, saying that it could harm vulnerable people.

“For this reason, we urge the US not to punish South Africa as a country if it has diplomatic differences with the SA government but to rather pressure ANC leaders to right what is wrong. We cannot allow it that ordinary South Africans suffer even more as a result of the mistakes of the ANC,” the delegation said.

It said its task to act on behalf of ordinary South Africans was obstructed by the South African government’s “persistent view that the diplomatic dispute is simply due to misunderstandings, and that they do not plan any policy changes despite the multiple crises the ANC-led government policies have landed the country in”.

“Our feedback from senior US government leaders is that the diplomatic disputes with South Africa have profound causes and are far more profound than being just a communication gap or ‘disinformation’ as the SA government is claiming it to be.”

Solidarity Movement has also expressed its serious concerns about the consequences of the new Expropriation Act, “calls for violence against Afrikaners” and the passing of the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (Bela), which impacts single-medium schools and power of School Governing Bodies.

The delegation also pointed out that it recognised and respected South Africa’s sovereignty, but that the government could not hide behind it when the human rights of a minority group was being disregarded or threatened by the new laws.

“It is necessary that these matters be raised abroad because the government has shown by the Bela talks, its continued refusal to amend racial laws, and the signing of the Expropriation Act without consulting its GNU partners that they have shut the door to talks in good faith in South Africa,” it said. The delegation is also being led by AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel, Solidarity union CEO Dirk Hermann and Solidarity Movement head international liaison head Jaco Kleynhans.

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At a rural village in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, unemployed 19-year-old Nozuko Majola is trying to figure out if she has enough money for the one-hour ride to collect her much-needed HIV medication, usually delivered to her home that can’t be easily reached due to rough, untarred roads.

Majola is one of millions of patients in South Africa affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s global foreign aid freeze, raising worries about HIV patients defaulting on treatment, infection rates going up and eventually a rise in deaths.

In 2024, think tank Human Sciences Research Council released figures showing that Majola’s province recorded the second-highest HIV prevalence in the country, at 16%, with at least 1,300 young people estimated to contract the disease every week.

KwaZulu-Natal also had the highest number of people living with HIV in South Africa in 2022, about 1.9 million. The country counts more than 7.5 million people infected with the virus that causes AIDS — more than any other nation.

There are 5.5 million South Africans receiving antiretroviral treatment, whose funding is now in question after Trump suspended the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. It contributes more than $400 million a year to South Africa’s HIV programs and nongovernmental organizations, about 17% of the total funding, according to the Health Ministry.

Globally, PEPFAR is credited with saving at least 26 million lives since its inception in 2003, according to the U.N. AIDS agency.

Last week, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily lift the funding freeze, while the U.S. Embassy in South Africa said PEPFAR projects would resume under a limited waiver. However, aid groups dealing with HIV have already shuttered with closure notices hanging at the entrances and PEPFAR-branded vehicles standing idle, with patients diverted to struggling health facilities.

Most of the PEPFAR funding is channeled through non-governmental organizations, which run programs that compliment health care services provided by the government.

For Majola and other HIV patients in the Umzimkhulu region, where unemployment is rife and most people rely on subsistence farming and government welfare grants, the aid freeze has disrupted their lives.

“Things will be tough around here, and a lot of people will default on their treatment because we really struggle with transport,” she said. “The mobile clinics hardly come here.”

The freeze has hurt various groups that can no longer provide treatment, causing an influx of patients to already overstretched public facilities. Along with the medication, these programs also allowed health personnel to test HIV patients in far-flung villages, which has been a lifeline for many, especially those afraid to visit public facilities due to the social stigma attached to HIV.

In addition, nearly 15,000 health workers whose salaries are funded through PEPFAR are left wondering if they have lost their livelihoods.

About an hour away in the district of Umgungundlovu, which the think tank says has the highest number of HIV cases in South Africa, HIV counselors gathered in a small office discussing how best to assist patients like Majola. A manager at a nearby health clinic wondered how to handle the administrative work that is piling up after PEPFAR-funded workers withdrew.

“People who were doing administration and data capturing, whose salaries were funded by PEPFAR, have left. We are a small facility and we cannot handle such a workload,” said the manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Nozuko Ngcaweni has been on HIV treatment for about 30 years. One of her children was also infected and died at age 17. She said the aid suspension already impacted her community and many missed their treatment.

“Not long ago, we said by 2030, we want to see an HIV-free generation. But if things remain as is, we will not achieve that. We will have to deal with deaths,” she said.

Mzamo Zondi, a provincial manager of the Treatment Action Campaign, which advocates for access to HIV treatment for the poor, has been monitoring the impact of the aid freeze in Umgungudlovu.

“Our response (to HIV) is likely to falter as we struggle to stop newly infected cases,” he said. “This is a matter of life and death.”

AP

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Zimbabwe’s finance minister expressed concern on Wednesday that a U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization will lead to aid cuts to countries such as his that are most affected by HIV/AIDS.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the U.S. withdrawal after his inauguration to a second term on Monday.

Warning that a U.S. withdrawal could signal cuts in health aid to countries such as Zimbabwe, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said: “Any country with an HIV/AIDS challenge will be impacted.”

“This is a concern, a fear we are expressing,” Ncube told an online briefing from the Swiss resort of Davos, where was attending the World Economic Forum.

Zimbabwe receives over $200 million annually from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and the U.S government has given Zimbabwe over $1.7 billion since 2006 to strengthen health systems and support people living with HIV, according the U.S. embassy in Harare.

PEPFAR contributes nearly $90 million a year to support salaries and incentives for healthcare workers in Zimbabwe, in addition to funding HIV and viral load testing, prevention, cervical cancer screening and tuberculosis treatment.

Zimbabwe is struggling to fund its public health system, and the government introduced a sugar tax on beverages last year to help raise funds for cancer treatment. Another tax on fast foods was introduced this year.

“We need to scale up our funding for health. The earmarked taxes should be directed towards health as we build our capacity to fill the gap should any funding recede,” Ncube said.

Reuters

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