The head of Non -AIDS The agency said on Monday that the number of new HIV infections could jump more than six times by 2029 if the American support for the biggest AIDS program was abandoned, warning that millions of people could die and that more strains resistant from the disease could emerge.
In an interview with the Associated Press, the Executive Director of Uusids, Winnie Byanyima, said that HIV infections have dropped in recent years, with only 1.3 million new cases recorded in 2023, a decrease of 60 % since the virus peak in 1995.
But since the announcement of US President Donald Trump, the United States would have freezed all foreign aid for 90 days, ByANYIMA said that officials estimate that by 2029, 8.7 million people have been newly infected by the HIV, a leap to ten in deaths related to AIDS – to 6.3 million – – and 3.4 million additional children have made orphans.
“We will see an increase in this disease,” said Byanyima, speaking of Uganda. “It will cost lives if the American government does not change their minds and does not maintain its leadership,” she said, adding that it was not its place to criticize government policy.
Byanyima pleaded with the Trump administration not to suddenly cut funding, which she said has led to “panic, fear and confusion” in many African countries the hardest affected by AIDS.
In a County in Kenyan, she said that 550 HIV workers had been immediately dismissed, while thousands of others in Ethiopia were dismissed, leaving health officials unable to follow the epidemic.
She noted that the loss of American financing for HIV programs in certain countries was catastrophic, with external funding, mainly from the United States, representing around 90% of their programs. Nearly $ 400 million go to countries like Uganda, Mozambique and Tanzania, she said.
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“We can work with (Americans) on how to reduce their contribution if they want to reduce it,” she said. Byanyima has described the American withdrawal of world HIV efforts as the second greatest crisis that the field has ever faced – after the delay of several years, it took poor countries to obtain antiretrovirals that save from available life in rich countries.
Byanyima also said that the loss of American support in the efforts to combat HIV was at another critical moment, with the arrival of what it called “a magic prevention tool” known as the Lenacapavir, A twice paragère shot that has been shown to provide complete protection against HIV in women, and which worked almost as well as for men.
The widespread use of this plan, in addition to other interventions to stop HIV, could help end the disease as a public health problem over the next five years, said Byanyima.
She also noted that Lenacapavir, sold like Sunlenca, had been developed by the American company Gilead.
International aid, said Byanyima, “helped an American company to innovate, to offer something that will pay them millions and millions, but at the same time prevent new infections in the rest of the world.” The freezing of American financing, she said, had no economic sense.
“We appeal to the American government to examine this, to understand that this is mutually beneficial,” she said, noting that foreign aid represents less than 1% of the US overall budget. “Why would you need to be so disruptive for this 1%?”
Byanyima has declared that so far, no other country or donor has intensified to fill the void that will be left by the loss of American aid, but that it plans to visit many European capitals to speak with the World leaders.
“People will die because rescue tools have been removed from them,” she said. “I have not yet heard of European countries that undertake to intervene, but I know that they listen and try to see where they can come in because they care about rights, humanity.”
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
