More than six million people could lose their lives to HIV and AIDS in the next four years if the U.S. government withdraws funding for global treatment programs, the United Nations AIDS agency (UNAIDS) warned on Friday.
Despite a waiver on HIV/AIDS programs following last month’s U.S. foreign aid funding freeze, concerns persist about the future of treatment services, according to Christine Stegling, UNAIDS’ deputy executive director.
“There is a lot of confusion, especially on the community level, about how the waiver will be implemented,” Stegling was quoted as saying by Reuters. “We’re seeing a lot of disruption in the delivery of treatment services.”
President Donald Trump froze hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid for 90 days after taking office on January 20. Days later, the U.S. State Department granted a waiver for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the world’s largest HIV initiative, allowing essential humanitarian aid to continue.
However, Stegling cautioned that the situation remains unstable and warned of a significant surge in AIDS-related deaths if PEPFAR funding is not renewed between 2025 and 2029.
“That’s 6.3 million people, 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths that will occur in the future,” she emphasized. “Any penny, any cut, any pause will matter for all of us.”
She also pointed to the direct impact of funding cuts, citing Ethiopia as an example, where 5,000 public health workers funded by U.S. aid have lost their jobs.
Community clinics, which heavily rely on U.S. support, are among the hardest hit, raising fears that treatment disruptions may lead to a rise in new HIV infections.
The U.S. provides the bulk of global funding for UNAIDS, which operates in 70 countries to combat AIDS as a public health crisis. The Trump administration has stated that it is reassessing all foreign aid programs to ensure they align with its “America First” policy.
