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STORY: This South African lab may be close to a breakthrough in the fight against HIV - but its researchers have had to stop work, after U.S. President Donald Trump hit pause on foreign aid.“One of our mRNA vaccines that had been... tested on the rabbits has shown quite a remarkable immune response.”That's lab technician Nozipho Mlotshwa.After that promising result, she and her colleagues at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg made four new versions and sent them off for pre-clinical tests. Those blood samples are now sitting, untouched, in a freezer.A trial of a separate vaccine candidate, which was about to be tested on humans, is also on ice.HIV can mutate quickly, making a vaccine difficult to create since it was first identified in 1983. The gene therapy research unit's director Patrick Arbuthnot called an HIV vaccine the "holy grail" of his field. The trials are part of a wider South African-led HIV vaccine development scheme known as BRILLIANT.They're funded entirely by a $45-million grant from the United States.BRILLIANT is unique in being Africa-led, aiming to develop capacity for producing vaccines on the continent.About two-thirds of the world's HIV cases are in Africa.Here's University of Cape Town medical virology associate professor, Wendy Burger:"The only thing that is going to make a huge impact in preventing the HIV infections is an HIV vaccine that will provide lifelong protection to people. So the work that we're doing goes a long way towards developing an HIV vaccine for our people on our continent."Trump in January ordered a 90-day halt on all foreign aid programs, to see if they align with his "America First" foreign policy.Separately, he's also moved to cut all funding to South Africa, to oppose its land reform policy and its genocide case against U.S. ally Israel.That's thrown the country's vaccine researchers into disarray. With some of the most groundbreaking studies coming from South Africa, they say the pause spells bad news for the world.About 40 million people across the globe are living with HIV, latest U.N. figures show. Including more than a million in the U.S., according to the country's data.
