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**Recovery from rapid defunding of USAid and NIH projects could “take years”, scientists say**
South African health researchers have painted a gloomy picture of the devastating effects that sudden cuts in the country’s US federal research funding are wreaking on the country’s science system.
For decades, NIH grants have funded clinical trials and investigator-led studies in South Africa, but with some grants already axed and others at risk, thousands of jobs are in jeopardy and decades of scientific progress could unravel, a 19 March webinar heard.
“What we’re experiencing now across multiple institutions is massive job losses. And I think the immediate concern for many of us is, how do we try to retain as many staff as possible?” Thesla Palanee-Phillips from the University of the Witwatersrand’s Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) in Johannesburg told the webinar.
The cuts threaten to halt the momentum South Africa has built up in medical research, which in turn has “hugely benefited all citizens of the world”, said Helen Rees, Wits RHI executive director. “You can literally, in this case, turn things off overnight, but to turn them on again will take years.”
**Diplomatic crisis**
Diplomatic relations between South Africa and the US have deteriorated rapidly in recent months. Already strained by South Africa’s efforts to prosecute Israel for its actions in Gaza, this week the US expelled South African ambassador Ebrahim Rasool over critical comments he made about the Trump administration’s foreign policy.
Last weekend, the journal Science reported that the NIH is rounding up all the grants it funds that involve South Africa. The move is believed to be in response to a 7 February executive order by US president Donald Trump to cut funding for the country over contested allegations that the South African government is discriminating against Afrikaners (South Africans of Dutch descent).
Blanket cuts to NIH grants featuring South Africa would come in the wake of the ongoing dismantling of research funding linked to US development aid, with particular focus on projects that mention diversity and inclusion, gender studies, LGBTQ+ issues and other areas that are unpopular with the new US administration.
**Not sustainable**
Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for Aids Programme of South Africa in Durban, told the webinar that the NIH used to contribute US$100m-$150m annually to South African medical research. An amount, he said, that far exceeds the government’s funding of health research. “Even if our government doubles its funding, it cannot make up for what is being lost.”
Palanee-Phillips said several institutions are looking at ways to reduce costs to avoid layoffs—for example, by cutting hours and keeping people employed on a fraction of their salaries. “But we all understand that this is not sustainable for the next three to five years.”
The South African government also has to contribute more, said Ntobeko Ntusi, president of the South African Medical Research Council. “We have ongoing discussions with the national Treasury, the national Department of Health, but also the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation and other partners on how to optimally support the research enterprise.”
However, there are other options, Abdool Karim said, like looking elsewhere for funding. “There’s a whole new world of funding opportunities,” he said, pointing to European and Asian funders, specifically. He said he has told every scientist at his centre to step up their grant-writing this year. “This is not the time to look only at the closing door—we must look for new ones opening,” he said.