Community health worker Geoffrey Chanda used to distribute HIV medications to long-haul truck drivers and sex workers at truck stops like this one near the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ben de la Cruz/NPR hide caption
On a morning in early April, Geoffrey Chanda's phone was going off almost constantly. Truck drivers were calling him.
"They are crying: 'We've got no [HIV] medicine. Where do you get [it] from?' " says Chanda, 54.
For 15 years, Chanda has been meeting truckers in dusty parking lots at the border of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo to give them their HIV medications. Now, he says, he doesn't know what to tell them.
He's lost his job as a community health worker. The U.S.-funded program he worked for - which supported the mobile clinic where he collected the medications for distribution - shut down.
On inauguration night - 100 days ago this week - the U.S. froze the vast majority of foreign aid, including billions of dollars in programs addressing global health issues. Since then most of the freezes have turned to terminations.
At first glance, it would seem as if Chanda's job should have been spared.
"We are continuing essential lifesaving programs," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement issued on March 28. "We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens."
The continuation of lifesaving programs, the Trump Administration says, include the distribution of HIV medications.
However, on the ground in Zambia, a different reality is apparent. Many HIV-clinics have shut their doors.
A State Department spokesperson said in a statement to NPR this month that U.S. partners who are providing lifesaving HIV treatment have been "notified and urged to resume approved service delivery." The spokesperson did not respond to requests for information about specific actions the U.S. has taken to resume HIV services in Zambia and elsewhere.
As of this week, Chanda says he's heard nothing about restarting his work delivering HIV medications, although a limited number of other U.S.-funded HIV clinics in Zambia have restarted with significantly reduced capacity.
Still, Chanda spends his days picking up a string of calls from truck drivers and sex workers who haven't been able to collect their HIV medications since the end of January - and are now getting sick.
Chanda started this work 15 years ago as a volunteer but, after his own brother died of AIDS in 2018, he decided to do it full time. " 'Let me teach others not to get [HIV],' " he remembers thinking to himself.
Leaving his job as a miner underground, Chanda moved above ground, spending his days in those dusty parking lots where 18-wheelers line up, many loaded down with freshly-mined minerals. While the drivers were waiting for clearance from government authorities to cross the border, Chanda would make sure those who needed HIV drugs had them before hitting the road again.
He was responsible for coordinating with over 200 truck drivers - as well as more than 150 sex workers. Calling and texting them, he'd figure out when they'd be passing through the border crossing and go meet them armed with their pills and all the information they needed about how not to spread HIV. He'd also helped identify people who were HIV-negative but at high-risk of getting HIV, to help them get information as well as medication that prevents people from getting the virus in the first place.
Long-haul truckers sometimes pause for days at this truck stop near the Zambian town of Chililabombwe as they await approval to cross the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo. Distributing HIV medicine on trucking routes is critical to stopping the spread of HIV, say public health experts. Ben de la Cruz/NPR hide caption
Chanda was part of a broader effort in Zambia and elsewhere to zero