Dar es Salaam, July 2 -- THIS year the world should have been “talking about the virtual elimination of HIV” in the near future.

“Within five years,” says Prof Sharon Lewin, a leading researcher in the field.

“Now thats all very uncertain.” Scientific advances had allowed doctors and campaigners to feel optimistic that the end of HIV as a public health threat was just around the corner.

Then came the Trump administrations abrupt cuts to US aid funding.

Now the picture is one of a return to the drugs rationing of decades ago, and of rising infections and deaths. But experts are also talking about building a new approach that would make health services, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, less v...