UN says if US funding for HIV programs is not replaced, millions more will die by 2029

LONDON: Years of American-led investment into AIDS programs has reduced the number of people killed by the disease to the lowest levels seen in more than three decades, and provided life-saving medicines for some of the world’s most vulnerable.

But in the last six months, the sudden withdrawal of US money has caused a “systemic shock,” UN officials warned, adding that if the funding isn’t replaced, it could lead to more than 4 million AIDS-related deaths and 6 million more HIV infections by 2029.

“The current wave of funding losses has 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,” UNAIDS said in a report released Thursday.

UNAIDS also said that it feared other major donors might also scale 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.

The $4 billion that the United States pledged for the global HIV response for 2025 disappeared virtually overnight in January when US President Donald Trump ordered that all foreign aid be suspended and later moved to shutter the US AID agency.

Andrew Hill, an HIV expert at the University of Liverpool who is not connected to the United Nations, said that while Trump is entitled to spend US money as he sees fit, “any responsible government would have given advance warning so countries could plan,” instead of stranding patients in Africa when clinics were closed overnight.

The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was launched in 2003 by US President George W. Bush, the biggest-ever commitment by any country focused on a single disease.

UNAIDS called the program a “lifeline” for countries with high HIV rates, and said that it supported testing for 84.1 million people, treatment for 20.6 million, among other initiatives. According to data from Nigeria, PEPFAR also funded 99.9 percent of the country’s budget for medicines taken to prevent HIV.

In 2024, there were about 630,000 AIDS-related deaths worldwide, per a UNAIDS estimate — the figure has remained about the same since 2022 after peaking at about 2 million deaths in 2004.

Even before the US funding cuts, progress against curbing HIV was uneven. UNAIDS said that half of all new infections are in sub-Saharan Africa and that more than 50 percent of all people who need treatment but aren’t getting it are in Africa and Asia.

Tom Ellman, of the charity Doctors Without Borders, said that while some poorer countries were now moving to fund more of their own HIV programs, it would be impossible to fill the gap left by the US

“There’s nothing we can do that will protect these countries from the sudden, vicious withdrawal of support from the US,” said Ellman, director of Doctors Without Borders’ South Africa Medical Unit. “Within months of losing treatment, people will start to get very sick and we risk seeing a massive rise in infection and death.”

Experts also fear another loss: data. The US paid for most HIV surveillance in African countries, including hospital, patient and electronic records, all of which has now abruptly ceased, according to Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of the Global Health Institute at Duke University.

“Without reliable data about how HIV is spreading, it will be incredibly hard to stop it,” he said.

The uncertainty comes as a twice-yearly injectable could end HIV, as studies published last year showed that the drug from pharmaceutical maker Gilead was 100 percent effective in preventing the virus.

Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the drug, called Sunleca — a move that should have been a “threshold moment” for stopping the AIDS epidemic, said Peter Maybarduk of the advocacy group Public Citizen.

But activists like Maybarduk said Gilead’s pricing will put it out of reach of many countries that need it. Gilead has agreed to sell generic versions of the drug in 120 poor countries with high HIV rates but has excluded nearly all of Latin America, where rates are far lower but increasing.

“We could be ending AIDS,” Maybarduk said. “Instead, the US is abandoning the fight.”