Optimism that the struggle against HIV could be won is fading after the US slashed funding for global health projects.
The development of the preventative drug lenacapavir, along with new research that hinted at a way of making the virus visible to the immune system, raised hopes of a breakthrough year. But cuts to US aid budgets mean that vaccine and drug stocks are dwindling and trials are being halted midstream.
Researchers fear infections are already rising, The New York Times reported, but they have no way of knowing, because the cuts have also devastated data collection. About 600,000 people are infected with HIV each year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
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