US Foreign Aid Cuts Could Bring Global AIDS Crisis Back to the 90s, Experts Warn

The United States has long been the biggest supporter of international humanitarian aid. But since President Donald Trump returned to the White House two months ago, he’s made deep cuts to foreign assistance. This has left the humanitarian community in a real mess. Now, the world faces the risk of slipping back into the worst days of the global AIDS pandemic. The sudden stop in US foreign aid funding has raised alarms, with the UN’s top AIDS official warning that millions could die because of it.

UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima said that if US funding isn’t brought back or if other countries don’t step up to fill the gap, “there will be an additional… 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths,” a 10-fold increase, over the next four years alone.

“You’re talking about losing the progress we’ve made over the last 25 years. It’s serious,” she told reporters in Geneva.

“It’s reasonable for the United States to want to cut back its funding over time, but the sudden stop of life-saving support is having a huge impact,” she said.

“The US cuts mean that today, 27 countries in Africa and Asia are facing staff shortages, and diagnostic treatment and surveillance systems are collapsing.”

AIDS Could Resurge Globally If Aid Isn't Restored

Looking beyond the next four years, if aid funding isn’t brought back, “we see the AIDS pandemic… resurging globally,” growing in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Byanyima said.

“We’ll see it come back, and we’ll see people die the way we saw them in the ’90s and 2000s.”

She praised US leadership in the fight against AIDS as “the greatest acts of humanity in global health.”

She highlighted the US anti-HIV initiative PEPFAR, which is considered one of the world’s most successful public health efforts, having saved an estimated 26 million lives over two decades.

Now, thanks to US innovations, the world is “on the verge of another breakthrough in prevention treatment,” Byanyima said, pointing to a new drug called lenacapavir, developed by US pharmaceutical giant Gilead.

Trials have shown the drug to be 100 percent effective, and Byanyima said tests were underway to offer it as a single injection per year — far more affordable for low-income countries.

“That’s almost like a flu shot,” she said. “If this could be rolled out widely… we could cut new infections to almost zero. We could see the end of AIDS.”

Byanyima appealed to the “deal-maker” Trump directly, insisting that rescuing the global HIV response was “an incredible deal”: lenacapavir can “make profits for Gilead, create good jobs for Americans, and save lives.”

She suggested that when PEPFAR is restored, UNAIDS could work with the United States and other donors to help low-income countries become self-sufficient in the fight against HIV.