Washington, DC — This World AIDS Day, AIDS activists from Housing Works, Health GAP, Treatment Action Group (TAG), AIDS United, ACT UP Philadelphia, and the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), protested at the White House, alongside former State Department officials working for PEPFAR and other global health programs, fired by the Trump Administration.

Activists protested the deadly harms caused by the Trump Administration’s attempts to shrink and dismantle the bipartisan global AIDS program, PEPFAR, which has saved 26 million lives worldwide. Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, has defied the appropriations authority of Congress, slashing the budget for the program despite full funding enacted by lawmakers, stealing $1.6 billion despite the direction of Congress that PEPFAR be fully funded. As a result, lifesaving treatment and prevention programs have closed across dozens of sub-Saharan African countries, while Vought has refused to release money ringfenced by Congress to save lives.

Global AIDS activists were joined by leading U.S. AIDS service providers and advocates, highlighting the connection between the ongoing epidemic in the U.S., disproportionately affecting Black, LGBTQ people, immigrants, homeless people, and people who use drugs—all communities under attack by the Trump Administration and millions of people whose lives and health are endangered by the blockage on PEPFAR funding for prevention, treatment and care.