United States discounts to help HIV will cost millions of lives

UNAIDS president warned that discounts in the United States would lead to 2000 new HIV injuries every day and more than six million other deaths over the next four years.

It would represent a flagrant reflection in the global battle against HIV, which witnessed a decrease in the number of deaths caused by the disease from more than two million in 2004 to 600,000 in 2023, the last year in which numbers are available.

UNAIDS CEO Winnie Piaanima said the US government’s decision to stop foreign aid – which included financing HIV programs – had already had severe consequences.

The United States called for the discounts immediately, and women and girls were particularly warned of difficulties.

US President Donald Trump has announced the stoppage of foreign aid, for a period of 90 days, on his first day in his post in January as part of a review of government spending. Since then, the majority of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been terminated.

Many HIV treatment and prevention programs of HIV of work orders, which led to the closure of mother and children’s medications in Africa, and a severe shortage of drugs that save the ARV.

Mrs. Bayraima said that she is afraid to return to the 1990s, when HIV was barely available in poor countries, and the infection and deaths rose.

For years, the United States has been the greatest individual fun to treat and prevent HIV, and thanked Mrs. Pianima Washington for its generosity and humanity.

She added that it is reasonable that the United States would like to “reduce its financing – over time,” but said that “sudden clouds to support life (was) has a devastating effect.”

There was no sign that Washington listened to appeals to change the path.

Traditional donors in Europe are also planning financing discounts, and UNIDS – the United Nations Joint HIV – did not have any indication that other countries may intervene to fill the gap left by the United States.

Speaking in Geneva on Monday, Mrs. Pianima described the Juliana case, a young woman in Kenya living with HIV. She worked on a program funded by the United States that supports new mothers to reach treatment to ensure that their children do not develop the disease.

With the comment of the program, Ms. Bianima said that Juliana was not only out of work, but because she was still breastfeeding her younger child, as she was afraid to lose the treatment she needed.

In the past, the World Health Organization (the World Health Organization) said that eight countries – Nigeria, Kenya, Lesoto, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Haiti and Ukraine – may be running close to HIV drugs after US financing stopped.

The President of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that the disruption of HIV programs “could retract 20 years of progress.”

In February, the leading South African Lobby Group warned that the TAC work campaign that the country may see a return to when HIV patients have struggled to reach the services needed to treat them.

“We cannot die, we cannot return to those years in which we were suffering from access to services, especially for people who suffer from HIV therapy,” said Sibongili Chapalala.

Mrs. Bayraima also proposed a Trump administration deal, as it provides an opportunity to market a new ARV developed for the United States for millions of people.

Lenacapavir, made by the American company Gilead, is granted by injection every six months, where UNIDS believes that 10 million people can benefit from it.

Mrs. Bayraima added that the profits and jobs resulting from such a deal will be very useful for the United States.

UNIDS is one of the number of United Nations agencies facing financing discounts.

The United Nations Refugee Agency has suggested that it may have to lose 6000 jobs, while UNICEF has warned that progress to reduce child deaths is threatened, and the World Food Program was forced to reduce the shares in the areas threatened with famine.