October 17, 2025
The US government shutdown escalated this week as the Administration acted on its Reduction in Force (RIF) threats across federal health agencies, laying off thousands and then retracting many of these notices, yet again increasing the chaos and confusion. The UK-based Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) abruptly cut all funding to US-based NGOs, and world leaders urged a streamlined global health system amid funding cuts, as Germany pledged €1B to the Global Fund at the World Health Summit.
US CDC Layoffs
Late Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued more than 1,300 layoff notices in response to the US government shutdown. These RIFs eliminated entire units across global health, epidemiology, disease surveillance and the writers of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), one of the most valued public health publications. However, within days, chaos and confusion intensified as many notices were retracted due to “coding errors”. Despite the backtracking, critical offices such as IRB, ethics, human resources, and policy liaison remain shuttered.
IMPLICATIONS: These disruptions are not just a domestic crisis; they are derailing global health efforts. The CDC is central to surveillance, epidemic response, vaccine research, and technical guidance for implementing programs in the US and around the world. When it loses capacity, these critical initiatives falter.
READ:
- Haphazard US CDC staff cuts leave questions around impact—Devex
- Trump’s shutdown firings at CDC cause whiplash, despair: What to know—The Hill
- ‘Instability and whiplash’ as CDC slashes 1,300 jobs before reinstating half—The Guardian
- With new cuts at CDC, some fear there’s ‘nobody to answer the phone’—NPR
- Trump Administration Admits It Laid Off Twice as Many HHS Employees as Intended—NOTUS
- Trump Administration Lays Off Dozens of C.D.C. Officials—New York Times
- ‘A Kick in the Mouth’: Trump Administration Makes Staffing Cuts to CDC’s Safety Office Months After Shooting—NOTUS
CIFF Cuts US Funding
The UK-based Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), a major global funder in child health and HIV prevention (including to AVAC), announced that it will immediately stop all grants to organizations based in the US amid increasing ambiguity in US laws governing foreign philanthropy. This decision terminates all active US contracts effective at the end of October, including grants to many organizations, including AVAC, that are still reeling from USAID stop-work orders earlier this year. According to Devex, in 2024, CIFF gave $12.7 million to the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, $7.3 million to PATH; $7.1 million to Piramal Foundation USA; $6 million to The Carter Center, and $2.6 million to AVAC. The decision to cease funding in the US follows weeks of pressure, including a critical National Review article targeting CIFF’s founder Sir Chris Hohn.
IMPLICATIONS: US foreign policy is becoming more hostile toward philanthropy—both inside and outside the US—and is reshaping the future of HIV prevention and global health funding. As donors like CIFF bypass US-based institutions, NGOs are confronting a new reality where political pressure—not program performance—can sever funding overnight. While these changes in the funding landscape can align with broader calls to recenter global health and accelerate investment in local organizations, it also creates challenges for organizations in the Global South to rapidly scale their governance, compliance, and financial systems to receive direct investment.
READ:
- Update for Our Partners—CIFF
- Major foundation pauses grants to US, citing unclear policy changes—Devex
- EU Foundation Suspends Partnering With U.S. Charities—Nonprofit Times
World Health Summit Updates
Global health leaders, civil society, and policy makers were in Berlin, Germany, this week for this year’s World Health Summit. With the theme of Taking Responsibility for Health in a Fragmenting World, this year’s Summit reflects the converging challenges of funding cuts, broken systems and geopolitics. Leaders from WHO, Gavi and Global Fund urged the sector to reduce duplication across agencies and consolidate the global health architecture, calling the aid system “too fragmented” and “too confusing” and urging fast action. Meanwhile, Germany committed €1 billion over three years to support the Global Fund. Despite being 25 percent lower than Germany’s previous pledge, it is an important sign of the importance of global health in German foreign policy and, hopefully, a catalyst for other European funders to step up in support of the Global Fund. Also, African leaders recommitted to local manufacturing of vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and health technologies as part of a push toward sovereignty in health systems.
IMPLICATIONS: The financial crisis facing global health, with the abrupt withdrawal of US aid as well as reductions from other donors, exposes structural problems that many acknowledge have existed for years—and now need urgent attention. The latest data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation showed global development assistance for health fell 21% between 2024 and 2025, driven almost entirely by a 67% drop in US financing, more than $9 billion. As Global Fund Executive Director, Peter Sands said, “I do think we’re actually going to have to reduce the number of entities. The system is too fragmented. There are too many underfunded institutions. There’s too much duplication. It’s too complex. That diagnosis, I think, is pretty straightforward.”
READ:
- Global Health Leaders Urge Fewer Agencies Amid Funding Crisis—Health Policy Watch
- Africa inches toward local production of vaccines and more—Devex
- Germany commits €1B to Global Fund as aid cuts shape World Health Summit—Devex
What We’re Reading
- The only thing standing between humanity and the end of HIV—Vox
- New HIV preventive drug under discussion—Newzroom Afrika
- They Fought Outbreaks Worldwide. Now They’re Fighting for New Lives.—New York Times
- PEPFAR’s Contributions to Health Systems and Global Health Security—Journal of Infectious Diseases
- Inside FDA, career staffers describe how political pressure is influencing their work—STAT
- Judge says she plans to order Trump administration to pause shutdown layoffs—Washington Post
- As US shutdown drags on, ‘it’s just one blow after another’—Science
- Maldives becomes the first country to achieve ‘triple elimination’ of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B—WHO
- No eradication without innovation: the EU at a crossroads to eliminate HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria—Global Health Advocates
- Foreign Aid Is Mostly Gone. It Could Be Replaced With Something Better.—New York Times (opinion)
- Pharma’s shift away from infectious disease research could spell disaster for the world’s poorest people—STAT
AVAC Resources
- Lenacapavir Regulatory Approval
- Potential Demand for LEN for PrEP
- HIV Prevention Product Overview
- Where We Are Now With LEN
- PrEP Price Comparison
Upcoming Webinars
Join our panelists for an unflinchingly honest—and interactive—conversation as we assess the impacts of the ongoing assault on transgender communities, gender affirming health care, data collection, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion writ large. Strategies to restore trust, sustain programming, and rebuild from the ashes will be explored.
Join Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA) to explore how shifting legal and policy environments are shaping HIV responses, why bold and intersectional advocacy strategies matter, and where philanthropy can make catalytic investments to protect and advance progress.