Kathmandu. Stakeholders have said that HIV and STD-related programs targeting gender and sexual minorities have been affected due to the suspension of aid from the United States Agency for Aid (USAID). <\/p>\n
Sunil Babu Pant, founder of Identity Nepal and former lawmaker of Maya’s Identity Nepal, said that programs related to HIV and STDs targeting gender and sexual minorities have been affected after the United States Agency for Aid (USAID) has been stopped. Talking to Nepal News Bank after a program organized in Kathmandu on Wednesday, Pant said that there is a lack of HIV testing, prevention materials and community-based testing services as the service has been affected for the past two years. He said that this has increased the risk of HIV infection among gender and sexual minority. <\/p>\n
“In about 25 districts, all the programs related to HIV risk of gender and sexual minorities and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases have been stopped. Now HIV testing is also not done. There is a shortage of condoms, lubricants and other equipment required for HIV prevention,” he said, adding that the risk of people in the community has increased due to the closure of the community-based HIV\/STI testing program. HIV infection is increasing. “<\/p>\n
Pant accused the government of not showing the necessary interest even though the service has been closed or affected since January 2025. He said that although the program is said to be run through some organizations after the USAID aid was stopped, there is no transparency about which organization is working. <\/p>\n
He also demanded speedy resolution of disputes in the selection process of the principal receiver for the program to be run with the support of the Global Fund. According to him, the dispute arose after the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) selected an institution.<\/p>\n
Currently, the Global Fund has recommended the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as the major recipient, but the Government of Nepal has not endorsed it. <\/p>\n
Pant said that although the Global Fund has been contributing to Nepal for more than two decades, the government mechanism should be given priority in the operation of health programs. He claimed that the tendency to make international NGOs and NGOs the main recipients by questioning the capacity and transparency of the government has made the operation of the program costly. <\/p>\n
He stressed on the need to develop the capacity of the government machinery to run health programs as the responsibility of public health is ultimately the government. Stating that the support of donor agencies is not always available, he said that the government should prepare now itself to take responsibility for the program in the future. <\/p>\n
Pant urged the Government of Nepal, Global Fund, CCM and UN agencies to resume services related to HIV and STDs for gender and sexual minorities. He demanded that the lack of services created by the closed programs should be addressed as soon as possible. <\/p>\n
Another leader Babudumi (Kranti) Rai said that the government has not been responsible for the health condition of gender and sexual minority. <\/p>\n
She said, “After the suspension of USAID’s projects, the health condition of gender and sexual minority communities in Nepal is becoming very bad. This is a serious issue. For 20 years, when the NGO INGOs were working, the government could not be responsible. \u2019<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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‘The risk increased due to the closure of HIV and STD-related services’ Kathmandu. Stakeholders have said that HIV and STD-related programs targeting gender and sexual minorities have been affected due to the suspension of aid from the United States Agency for Aid (USAID). Sunil Babu Pant, founder of Identity Nepal and former lawmaker of Maya’sContinue reading “‘Closure of HIV and STD services increases risk’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":115552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-samachar-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/photo-8_261ef976.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115579,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115578\/revisions\/115579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/115552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}