by Charles Gladden
BELIZE CITY, Mon. June 16, 2025
Over 3,500 people currently afflicted by HIV are concerned by the US President’s executive order to freeze foreign funding for the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump signed off on a series of executive orders to overhaul the US in early January, including PEPFAR.
This loss of funding will affect HIV centers throughout the globe which rely on it for testing, medication, and support, as they are trying to keep their daily operations running.
According to Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Chairperson of the National AIDS Commission, one-third of the global funding comes from the US, and Belize needs to be prepared if or when that day comes for the US to pull the funding.
“With the Trump Administration, it is unclear what will happen, but we must be prepared. In Belize, we are in a better position than the other Caribbean countries because they [are] dependent on global funding [more] than us. The anti-retroviral medication has been provided free of cost for at least 20 years, and that is being done by the government, and that is what I’m saying, we are in a better position,” she said.
“However, other important programs like adherence for people reaching out to the social partners, so they can fund their clients, those kinds of initiatives are funded to a degree by the Global Fund, so we as a country need to be prepared,” Chairperson Balderamos Garcia continued.
Chairperson Balderamos Garcia highlighted that the government will fill the void if the Global Funding is pulled out.
“We do not want our services and outreach to be affected. The good news is that a month or two ago, the Ministry of Health became fully onboard with what we called The Differentiate Surface Delivery Model. They are now in agreement with the National AIDS Commission that we will employ the use of the self-testing kits, because some of the vulnerable groups don’t want to reach out to the clinics [for fear of] stigma and discrimination,” she said.
Belize’s objective is to end the transmission of the virus as an estimated 3,700 persons are living with HIV in the country, and 2,493 have died from HIV-related illness as of 2021.