United States President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend overseas funding could have devastating consequences, potentially leading to millions of additional deaths from AIDS, the head of the United Nations’ programme for the illness warned on Sunday.
The United States is the world’s largest provider of official development assistance, with the bulk of its funds channeled through the United States Agency for International Development. Upon returning to office in January, Trump ordered a three-month freeze on most US foreign assistance, leaving global humanitarian organizations struggling to address the fallout.
“It’s dramatic in many countries,” UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima told AFP.
“I need to sound the alarm so that it’s very clear that this is a big part (of AIDS relief funding). If it goes away, people are going to die.”
As part of the suspension, the US government also included a 90-day halt to operations under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Although the administration later issued waivers for medications provided under the programme, concerns remain over the broader impact of the funding freeze.
The PEPFAR programme, according to an analysis from the Foundation for AIDS Research, supports more than 20 million HIV patients and funds 270,000 health workers worldwide. Byanyima warned that without continued support, the consequences could be catastrophic.
“We could see additional deaths increasing by tenfold” to 6.3 million in five years, Byanyima said, citing UNAIDS estimates. “Or we could see new infections increase up to 8.7 million” in the same period, she added.
While the United States has assured that “life-saving treatments” would be exempt from the funding freeze, frontline healthcare workers in Africa report that some facilities have already been forced to shut down.
Speaking on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Byanyima disclosed that she had raised the issue with African leaders, urging them to transition from reliance on foreign aid to increased domestic funding for healthcare. However, she acknowledged that many African nations are burdened by significant debt, which severely limits their ability to address the funding gap.
“Part of the answer is in pushing very hard for an immediate and comprehensive debt restructuring,” she explained. “For many of them, debt is crowding out what could be spent on health and education.”
USAID, founded in 1961, has an annual budget exceeding $40 billion, which it uses to support development, health, and humanitarian programmes globally, particularly in low-income nations. The sudden freeze in US funding has raised alarms among international aid groups, who warn of dire consequences if alternative funding sources are not secured.
