“Within days the virus can come back…”
“Matthew Loftus, a doctor and evangelical Christian working at a mission hospital in Kenya, said the damage was already being done on the ground. He said that Pepfar “is being dismantled” and that “many people will die” as a result.
“In some places they’re not getting the drugs or they’re being asked to pay cash for the drugs. Other places are completely closed and so patients are scrambling to find medications or they’re going without,” he said.
“There are going to be consequences. Once you stop taking ARVs, within days the virus can come back online and then start developing resistance. I’m really scared that there are going to be a bunch of people who haven’t been taking their drugs and then, when we try to start them back, we’re going to find that they’re resistant. They could turn everything back on tomorrow and I think there would be permanent damage. Once you fire people and close clinics, rebuilding trust is difficult, getting people to come back is difficult.””