The US State Department has announced it will no longer commemorate World AIDS Day with public messaging. This ends a decades-long tradition of raising awareness on 1 December.
Donald Trump could become “one of the greatest presidents in history” if he “ended AIDS.”
In a new interview with Variety, Elton John spoke about his desire to stop the global spread of AIDS and said that Trump’s efforts in combatting the spread of the life-threatening disease would “really be a feather in his cap.”
“There’s a big war that’s being settled, hopefully,” said Sir Elton, in reference to the situation in Gaza. “But there’s another war with people who are suffering from HIV and AIDS that should be able to get their medicine but can’t, because governments won’t let them. It’s inhumane.”
“It’s so frustrating when you have the medicine, you have PrEP [Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis], you have the antiretrovirals. We can stop the spread of AIDS, if people just got off their backsides and treated human beings in a Christian kind of way.”
He added: “President Trump has maybe solved the peace problem…If he wants to go down as one of the greatest presidents in history… if he ended AIDS, that would really be a feather in his cap.”
It seems like those words have not resonated with Trump and his administration, as the State Department announced it will end its decades-long tradition of public messaging for World AIDS Day – which takes place on 1 December.
The New York Times reported that the State Department has instructed employees to not use federal funding for commemorative activities – a departure from the tradition dating back to 1993, when President Bill Clinton first issued a Presidential Proclamation for World AIDS Day.
It is still unclear whether Donald Trump will make a presidential proclamation for World AIDS Day on Monday.
The change comes as President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a global HIV/AIDS initiative which helps people living with HIV to manage the virus, has faced funding cutbacks, with more reductions proposed by Trump's administration.
In February, Trump announced that his administration intended to cut more than 90 per cent of the US Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts – axing what AP projected to be $60billion of US global aid spending.
Earlier this year, Sir Elton warned that Trump’s “abrupt decision” to cut USAID budget would have “devastating effects” on the global response to HIV.
According to the United Nations, the US is the largest donor to the global AIDS response and cuts have a huge impact on the effort to combat HIV/AIDS - as evidenced by a new report published this month by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS.
The UN body UNAIDS says that Trump’s foreign aid cuts earlier this year have killed people, left millions without medicine, and sent the global aid response into “crisis mode”.
Since 1988, World AIDS Day has been recognized internationally as a day to raise awareness for the AIDS pandemic and mourn those who have died from the life-threatening disease. That awareness needs communication.
As Sir Elton stated in his recent interview: “If there’s no dialogue, it may take much longer than we hope it will. You can’t walk away after coming so far.”
