Deep cuts to HIV research could halt decades of progress, scientists say | The Trump administration has shut down government offices devoted to HIV and ended hundreds of millions of dollars in research aimed at preventing infections in high-risk groups

> The Trump administration this week decimated HIV prevention programs across government health agencies after terminating hundreds of millions of dollars in grants for the next phase of the battle against the deadly virus.

> Together, the cuts threaten to halt progress in the use of a revolutionary HIV medication that made it possible to finally stymie one of the world’s most serious infectious diseases, according to researchers, medical providers and HIV advocacy groups.

> The fight against HIV gained significant momentum more than a decade ago with the approval of preventive medication known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which is taken routinely and provides almost complete protection against infection from the virus.

> But nearly two-thirds of the 1.2 million people at the greatest risk of contracting HIV infections are not on PrEP, health officials say.

> Researchers have shifted their focus to identifying ways to achieve widespread use of PrEP among people most likely to encounter the virus, primarily Black and Latino men who have sex with men. That is crucial to stopping wider transmission of HIV.

> “Tremendous progress has been made in the last three decades, but the crux of the matter is we weren’t finished. We weren’t reaching everyone we need to reach,” said Colleen Kelley, an infectious-diseases physician and chair of the HIV Medicine Association, an advocacy group of medical professionals. “It’s like the rug is being ripped out under us.”

> But in recent weeks, the National Institutes of Health has pulled funding from many of those studies.

> It shuttered the HHS Office of Infectious Diseases & HIV Policy that coordinated the federal response. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost staff in its HIV prevention division who conducted studies and surveillance, ran health campaigns and supported local prevention programs. The CDC’s top HIV official was notified he would be among nine senior leaders reassigned to the Indian Health Service.

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