The Trump administration has cut $29.2 million from Texas groups that test people for HIV in their own neighborhoods.

The money came from a federal grant run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC let it expire on September 30, according to The Texas Tribune. Texas got more of this money than any other state. It went to 11 community groups, mostly in cities, over the last five years. The CDC did not respond when the Tribune asked about it.

Texas can't afford this. The state ranks fifth in the nation for new HIV diagnoses per person, according to 2024 data from AIDSVu, a mapping tool from Emory University.

Why these groups matter

You can get an HIV test at a clinic or your doctor's office. But you have to go looking for it. Many people at the highest risk never do.

Community groups go to them instead. They set up testing at bars and nightclubs and run mobile vans. People trust them more than clinics. In Austin, Emma Sinnott of Vivent Health told the Tribune that many of her clients worry a clinic visit could reveal their sexuality to people they know.

That trust shows up in the numbers. From 2012 to 2017, community groups found a new HIV case in 1.4% of the tests the CDC paid for. Local health departments found one in 0.5%. That's a rate of finding new cases almost three times as high.

The grant paid for tests, for connecting people to care, and for HIV prevention medicine, which almost completely protects people from getting infected.

What the groups lose

• Allies in Hope in Houston has provided HIV care for more than 40 years. The grant gave it about $441,000 a year and covered more than a quarter of the roughly 2,000 tests it does each year. Unless it finds new money, it will test fewer people.
• Black Efforts Against the Threat of AIDS in San Antonio got more of this grant money than any other group in the country. Last year, the grant covered 20% of its roughly 5,000 HIV tests. San Antonio sees 300 to 400 new HIV diagnoses every year.
• Vivent Health in Austin used the money for outreach testing. It was 30% of the group's HIV prevention funding. Sinnott said the cut will mean fewer outreach events and less access to newer shots that prevent HIV after exposure. She worries the group will eventually have to charge for testing panels for sexually transmitted diseases that are free now.

Michele Durham, executive director of Black Efforts Against the Threat of AIDS, told the Tribune that less money means less testing, and more people living with HIV who don't know it and could pass it on. "For us to let up off the gas right now is just not our smartest move as a community and as a nation," she said.

The replacement is a fraction of it

The CDC is now giving state health departments a one-time pot of money that runs through May 2027. Texas's share is a little over $5.2 million.

Only $1.2 million of that will go to community groups, according to the state health department. Texas groups had been getting more than $3 million a year directly. States are encouraged, but not required, to pass even 10% of the new money to community groups.

Part of a bigger pattern

The Tribune notes that this cut comes as the Trump administration has "launched a far-reaching offensive targeting HIV-eradication efforts both domestically and abroad."

In 2025, the National Institutes of Health cut at least $759 million in HIV research grants. The administration has also tried to cut or change the Ending the HIV Epidemic plan, part of the Ryan White program that pays for HIV care, and a program that helps people with AIDS pay for housing.

That's a sharp turn. During his first term, Trump set a goal of ending the HIV epidemic in America by 2030. Carl Schmid of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute told the Tribune that in Trump's first year back, "they zeroed budget proposals on HIV prevention programs."

It isn't only Washington. In Tennessee, the Republican state government is now forcing HIV/AIDS programs to check patients' immigration status.

Cutting it costs more

A single case of HIV can cost up to $1 million to treat over a person's life, Johns Hopkins professor Anthony Fojo told the Tribune. Finding cases early means fewer new infections. Running 1,000 tests to find one case still saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in the long run.

"It's kind of penny wise and pound foolish to cut funding for testing," Fojo said.

The bottom line

The Trump administration let a CDC grant expire on September 30, 2026, cutting $29.2 million from 11 Texas groups that test people for HIV where they live. Texas ranks fifth in the nation for new HIV diagnoses. The one-time replacement gives Texas about $5.2 million, and only $1.2 million of that goes to the community groups, which had been getting more than $3 million a year.

Source

The Texas Tribune: "Feds axe $29 million in HIV prevention funding for Texas"