Additional Context: “We have almost depleted our ARVs because we have new clients coming. So we have not received commodities since [the stop work order] because the warehouse that provides the commodities, their contract was terminated.” — Physician and head of multiservice organization, Uganda

“In fact, I feel so bad […]. People were strong again and now their lives [are] start[ing] to decline. […] It is very hurt[ful]. The children who grew up in our hands, who were brought [to us close to] death and we have grown them up – now they are youth. Some are in the university […]. Now, if they go back to where we got them from – really, it has affected us so much. It’s like a mother seeing [her] children dying of hunger and yet [doesn’t] have anything to feed them. You see someone who [is] declining slowly.... Something should be done.” — AIDS treatment center NGO executive director, Uganda

This information was first published in an August 2025 research brief by Physicians for Human Rights entitled "On the Brink of Catastrophe: U.S. Foreign Aid Disruption to HIV Services in Tanzania and Uganda.” This research brief draws on 29 oral history interviews, including five focus groups, with doctors, nurses, peer counselors, people living with HIV, key population members, and non-governmental organization staff conducted in Tanzania and Uganda in April 2025. To document the impacts of the U.S. foreign aid freeze and HIV funding cuts, the multidisciplinary study team used purposive and snowball sampling in Moshi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Fort Portal, Kampala, Kasese, and Tororo, Uganda. Participants had explicit control over how personal information was shared, with consent and demographic forms tailored to individual preferences. 

Source: Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)