GROUNDUP: World’s largest biomedical research funder lifts ban on South Africa

Many clinical trials were halted and many researchers were retrenched when the US National Institutes of Health stopped funding.

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has lifted its ban on South Africa, nearly 18 months after its February order to stop work with South Africa created a crisis for HIV and TB research.

In January 2025, the US began halting funding of South African projects, including NIH grants and US Agency for International Development (USAID) aid.

The scientific journal, Science, reported that an internal memo dated 17 August, signed by NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, had lifted the ban. We have since obtained the memo, which is marked “Not for distribution outside government”. It states funding for “meritorious research projects” in South Africa may proceed.

The memo states that NIH grants are “distinct from the objectives traditionally associated with foreign aid or assistance”.

A brief from May 2025 by Doctors Without Borders, US advocacy organisation Treatment Action Group, and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) found that critical research initiatives and decades of investments in research infrastructure were affected by the NIH stop-work order.

The brief noted that research in South Africa, mostly led by South African scientists with NIH funding, has in the past two decades “shaped global health policies that have revolutionised TB and HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, benefiting both the local population and communities worldwide, including people who live in the United States”.

Ntobeko Ntusi, president and CEO of the SAMRC, confirmed that the decision comes after 12 months of negotiating with the NIH “to reverse their position on South Africa”.

“Part of the mandate of the NIH to engage in international research collaborations should be viewed in light of the fact that South Africa is one of only few countries that co-funded biomedical research with the NIH, rather than merely being a recipient,” Ntusi said.

“I welcome this apt decision of the NIH because no country can ever solve the challenges of global health alone… We need scientific collaboration to drive scientific progress,” he said.

Linda-Gail Bekker, director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, said the centre had to retrench people when the funding stopped, since it was largely NIH funded. It had a partnership with the NIH for decades.

Bekker said there has been a long hiatus from receiving research protocols from their networks in the US, such as Advancing Clinical Therapeutics Globally and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network.

She said their networks are coming to the end of seven-year trials for their clinical trials units. “We haven’t had confirmation that South Africa will be included. But we feel more optimistic than we did before,” she said.

She said they have received some funding from the SAMRC in reprieve of the lost NIH money but not anywhere close to the same volume.