GENEVA, Feb 8 — The suspension of foreign aid programmes by United States (US) President Donald Trump puts 6.3 million people at risk of dying from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) over the next four years, a United Nations (UN) organisation dealing with the viral disease warned on Friday.
“There is still a lot of confusion… about how the waiver will be implemented, and we are seeing a lot of disruption in the delivery of treatment services,” Anadolu Agency quoted UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Christine Stegling as saying during a UN briefing in Geneva, Switzerland.
Regarding the freeze’s impact, she said 20 million of the world’s 30 million HIV-positive people rely on US aid for treatment.
Noting that the global HIV response is heavily dependent on funds from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), as it finances 70 per cent of the overall AIDS response, Stegling said, “We estimate that if PEPFAR was not reauthorised between 2025 and 2029 and other resources were not found for the HIV response, there would be a 400 per cent increase in AIDS deaths.”
“That is 6.3 million people, 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths that will occur in the future,” she warned.
With the funding freeze, the biggest interruption will be in community health systems, she said, giving the example of Ethiopia, where UNAIDS had 5,000 public health worker contracts funded by US assistance.
“All of these, in all regions of Ethiopia, have been terminated,” Stegling said.
— Bernama
