Patients have witnessed Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) access and refill disruptions. There has been a significant shift from 3–6 month refills to 1-month refills, reversing progress toward multi-month dispensing. Further, there has been a 9% decrease in 3-month refills, 8% increase in 1-month refills, and 8% reduction in patients collecting ART from external pick-up points, linked to loss of PEPFAR-funded service providers. 35% of patients reported it took longer to collect ART.

Date: 10/25

Region: Africa

Country: South Africa

Topic: Health

Policy Lens: Global Health Security

Additional Context: In October 2025, Ritshidze released a report on the national state of health in 2025. Ritshidze is a community-led monitoring system implemented by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). Since 2018, Ritshidze has been consistently collecting data across sites in 26 PEPFAR priority districts. Following the PEPFAR funding cuts, monitoring is now continuing in 17 districts. As part of this reporting, a new tool was deployed to survey patients as they exit the clinic in order to gather evidence for the state of service provision on that exact day.

All Ritshidze data collection tools and data dashboard are available here.

Source: Ritshidze

Devex Researcher Note: Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) is a combination of medications used to treat and manage Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection.