The Anova Health Institute, which received the lions share of the US Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Pepfar funding in South Africa, had their funding halted in February along with dozens of nonprofits throughout the country.
Hlokomela Clinic in Limpopo was one of NGOs that relied on a grant from Anova, and had to cut back their HIV programme, which tested 1 000 farm workers for HIV each month .
The clinic groups founder, Christine Du Preez, told Bhekisisa how 20 years of hard lessons with a dose of good luck and a lot of persistence has helped them to prepare for such a crisis.
In todays newsletter , Zano Kunene discusses how Hlokomela Clinic is making sure patients can still get tested and treated for HIV in spite of US global funding cuts. Sign up for our newsletter today.
When Sindy Nkuna woke up to an email saying that the United States had decided to temporarily freeze all foreign aid in January, it was scary.
I felt shattered, she says. For days I had racing heartbeats thinking whats going to happen to me and to my kids. It was unbelievable. I have two boys.
Nkuna had been placed at the Hlokomela Clinic , 200km away from Polokwane, keeping track of HIV information in the fruit and game farming community of the Mopani district, Limpopo.
A data capturer, she tracked new cases of HIV, how many people were tested and how many were on treatment. The funding for her job and six HIV testing counsellors, a site coordinator and part of their financial managers salary came through a grant from the Anova Health Institute , the HIV organisation which received the most Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Pepfar funding in South Africa.