In Cape Town, South Africa, one of the world’s foremost HIV researchers has been spending a chunk of each day gently telling longtime workers and young doctoral students that the money is gone and so are their jobs. When the calls are done, she weeps in her empty office.

In the heart of Johannesburg, the lobby of a building that once housed hundreds of scientists is empty of people but choked with discarded office furniture and heaps of files hastily gathered from shuttered research sites.