The uptake of the once-every-six-month HIV prevention jab lenacapavir (LEN) in South Africa will be heavily affected by the Trump administration's funding cuts to the country, a new report has found. Researchers conducted in-depth interviews with doctors, nurses, peer counsellors, transgender and young people, sex workers, gay and bisexual men and government health workers with personal experience of the funding cuts in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

South Africa's uptake of the once-every-six-month HIV prevention jab, lenacapavir (LEN), will be heavily affected by the Trump administration's funding cuts to the country, because it destroyed much of the infrastructure - such as community-based testing and field recruitment for HIV prevention services - needed to create demand for the medicine.

That's one of the findings of a report released on Tuesday by the United States (US)-based organisation, Physicians for Human Rights, and two local nonprofits, Advocacy for Prevention of HIV and Aids and Emthonjeni Counselling & Training.

LEN is almost foolproof in stopping HIV-negative people from getting the virus through sex; scientists estimate if between one and two million people without HIV get the injection at least once a year between now and 2043, the country could prevent enough new infections to stop Aids from being a big public health threat within eight years.

SA's first two shipments - a total of 37,920 doses paid for with money from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria - arrived in late March and early April and rollout is expected to start in late May to early June.

The report's authors conducted...