Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says the government will send a team to the US following an announcement that the US plans to cut funding for HIV/Aids treatment programmes, reports Eyewitness News. Motsoaledi said that the announcement is not final at this stage.
The report says South Africa has the biggest HIV/Aids treatment plan in the world and the US helps fund the South African government's initiatives to address the pandemic. Motsoaledi said that 80% of the HIV scheme is funded from South Africa's own fiscal and 20% from development partners, which includes the US's President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR).
PEPFAR donated more than R10bn to South Africa for the 2018/19 financial year.
Motsoaledi added that this was the case not only South Africa but for other countries too, including India. “Anything that a development partner doesn’t fund you, you try to find it internally. So, wholly depends on us as South Africans, whether we believe in order to live Americans must do something.
“But if we believe in order to live, we stand on our own, and then it means our own internal sources must do something about it.”
[link url="https://ewn.co.za/2019/04/08/motsoaledi-to-send-team-to-us-over-plans-to-cut-hiv-aids-treatment-funding"]Eyewitness News report[/link]