WASHINGTON: The chief science officer for the US flagship HIV/AIDS programme left his role this week and criticised the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign assistance and what he said was its use of aid as leverage for US commercial interests.

Republican President Donald Trump last year dismantled the US Agency for International Development, which previously oversaw most foreign aid programmes, but officials said life-saving work mainly in developing African nations under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a bipartisan initiative created under George W. Bush’s presidency, would continue.

Mike Reid, a practicing infectious disease physician who served as chief science officer for PEPFAR in the State Department’s Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, said in a post on Substack on Monday he had stayed in the job for the past 18 months in hopes of preserving at-risk programs.

But he said funding for health programs overseas was being used as leverage over developing countries, citing a New York Times report last month that said the State Department was considering withholding assistance to help people with HIV in Zambia to push the country to sign a favorable critical-minerals deal with the US.—Reuters