UNAIDS Report Warns Millions More Will Die If US Funding For HIV Programs Is Not Replaced

The AP (7/10, Cheng) reports a UNAIDS report released Thursday warns that the sudden withdrawal of US funding in the last six months has caused a “systemic shock,” adding that if the funding isn’t replaced, it could result in more than four million AIDS-related deaths and six million more HIV infections by 2029. The report said the funding losses have “already destabilized supply chains, led to the closure of health facilities, left thousands of health clinics without staff, set back prevention programs, disrupted HIV testing efforts and forced many community organizations to reduce or halt their HIV activities.” Furthermore, report authors fear that if “other major donors scaled back their support, reversing decades of progress against AIDS worldwide – and that the strong multilateral cooperation is in jeopardy because of wars, geopolitical shifts and climate change.” Reuters (7/10, Cocks) reports that the Trump Administration’s “sudden slashing of finance for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief threw the global response to HIV/AIDS into disarray. Although many countries still have enough life-saving antiretroviral drugs, clinics aimed at vulnerable groups such as gay men, sex workers and teenage girls have shut due to a lack of paid staff, and prevention programmes have all but petered out.” The report noted that “25 out of 60 low and middle-income countries had boosted HIV spending in their domestic budgets between them by about 8%.” UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima told Reuters in an interview, “This is promising, but not sufficient to replace the scale of international funding in countries that are heavily reliant.”