GLOBAL HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT

editor's note

This week, we published a story by correspondent Gabrielle Emanuel that offered a surprising insight into the impact of U.S. foreign aid cuts on treatment for people with HIV. Health specialists had predicted a significant disruption to these services. But numbers posted by the U.S. weren’t as bad as the forecasts and offered cause for optimism.

Her story looks at the reasons for this unexpected outcome. Much credit goes to health workers who lost their salary due to aid cuts but continued working, checking in on patients with HIV.

Here’s what Emanuel found in her interviews:

For eight years, Harerimana Ismail (pictured above) was a community health worker in southwestern Uganda. The stop-work orders in early 2025 meant that he lost his job — which had been paid for by a U.S. grant. But he has kept on working, going door-to-door checking on children and teens with HIV to make sure they have their medications. 

“There is not any stipend or salary that I'm paid,” says Ismail, 32, who himself contracted HIV at birth from his mother. “It’s just because I understand the pain young people living with HIV pass through — that's why I remain.” Read his story here.

Prossy Muyingo is another Ugandan community health worker who lost her job in the aid cuts but also keeps checking on her patients. 

“Now we are not paid, but the heart we had for our communities that is the only thing pushing us [to keep working],” she says. “These are our neighbors, the people we share our churches with, the borehole where we fetch water.”

Not one of the now unpaid health workers brought up their financial constraints and woes independently. Only after being asked about personal sacrifices did they mention they were struggling to feed themselves and their families.

Read the story here.

Marc Silver
Editor, global health and development