UNAIDS Urges Continuation of All Essential HIV Services in Wake of Funding Freeze

In the wake of the U.S. pausing its funding for foreign aid, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is “urging for a continuation of all essential HIV services.”

The head of UNAIDS, Winnie Byanyima, said that “the number of new HIV infections could jump more than six times by 2029 if American support of the biggest AIDS program is dropped, warning that millions of people could die and more resistant strains of the disease could emerge,” as reported by the Times of India. Byanyima also said that HIV infections had been falling in recent years and pausing foreign assistance for 90 days, as President Trump has announced, would be catastrophic.

In some countries hard hit by the virus, U.S. aid accounts for “about 90 percent” of the whole country’s program to fight the disease. This also comes at a particularly inauspicious time given the recent arrival of lenacapavir, a “twice-yearly shot that was shown to offer complete protection against HIV in women, and which worked nearly as well as for men.” Byanyima estimated that widespread use of the shot, which is produced by Gilead, could “help end the disease as a public health problem in the next five years.”

According to the UNAIDS press release, “there are 1.3 million people that are newly infected with HIV every year, 3,500 every day. Young women and girls in Africa are at alarming high risk of HIV, where 3,100 young women and girls aged 15 to 24 years become infected with HIV every week and at least half of all people from key populations are not being reached with prevention services.” More than 20 million people, or two-thirds of all people living with HIV who are accessing treatment, “are directly supported by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).” Many organizations funded by PEPFAR are reporting they will have to close due to the funding pause.