South Africa has the world's largest population of people living with HIV, at more than 8 million, and has become a hub for research on the virus. But a pause on U.S. foreign aid ordered by President Donald Trump is now hampering researchers who say they are at last closing in on a vaccine. - REUTERS
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00:00This South African lab may be close to a breakthrough in the fight against HIV, but its researchers
00:07have had to stop work, after U.S. President Donald Trump hit pause on foreign aid.
00:12One of our mRNA vaccines that had been tested on the rabbits has shown quite remarkable
00:21immune response.
00:22That's lab technician Nodzipo Mlotwa.
00:26After that promising result, she and her colleagues at the University of Witswaterrand in Johannesburg
00:30made four new versions and sent them off for preclinical tests.
00:35Those blood samples are now sitting untouched in a freezer.
00:39A trial of a separate vaccine candidate, which was about to be tested on humans, is also
00:44on ice.
00:45HIV can mutate quickly, making a vaccine difficult to create since it was first identified in
00:511983.
00:53The Gene Therapy Research Unit's director, Patrick Arbenot, called an HIV vaccine the
00:58holy grail of his field.
01:01The trials are part of a wider South African-led HIV vaccine development scheme known as Brilliant.
01:07They're funded entirely by a $45 million grant from the United States.
01:12Brilliant is unique in being Africa-led, aiming to develop capacity for producing vaccines
01:17on the continent.
01:19About two-thirds of the world's HIV cases are in Africa.
01:23Here's University of Cape Town medical virology associate professor Wendy Berger.
01:28The only thing that is going to make a huge impact in preventing new HIV infections is
01:34an HIV vaccine that will provide lifelong protection to people.
01:38So the work that we're doing goes a long way towards developing an HIV vaccine for our
01:43people on our continent.
01:45Trump in January ordered a 90-day halt on all foreign aid programs to see if they align
01:50with his America First foreign policy.
01:53Separately, he's also moved to cut all funding to South Africa to oppose its land reform
01:58policy and its genocide case against U.S. ally Israel.
02:03That's thrown the country's vaccine researchers into disarray.
02:07With some of the most groundbreaking studies coming from South Africa, they say the pause
02:11spells bad news for the world.
02:14About 40 million people across the globe are living with HIV, latest UN figures show, including
02:21more than a million in the U.S., according to the country's data.