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 four million AIDS-related deaths and six million more HIV infections by 2029.

“The current wave of funding losses has already destabilised supply chains, led to the closure of health facilities, left thousands of health clinics without staff, set back prevention programmes, disrupted HIV testing efforts and forced many community organisations 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 US$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. (Jamaica Gleaner)