Experts warn that if the planned funds for foreign aid persist continued, if the progress of progress was weakened for years, the global death caused by HIV/AIDS and new infections could increase to invisible level from the beginning of the century.
According to a study published today in the Lancet HIV Journal, Lancet HIV estimates that by 2030, it can be 4.4 million to 11.8 million in low -income and intermediate income countries, and 770,000 to 2.9 million HIVs in children and adults.
Donald Trump’s executive of the United Nations withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization and cutting support for the world’s humanitarian projects, including funding for the president’s AIDS relief and funding for USAID.
Other major international donors, such as the United States, France, Germany and the Netherlands, have announced plans to implement significant cuts of foreign aids with more than 90 % of international aids with the United States.
According to researchers, global HIV funds can be reduced by 24 % by 2026.
Development has been released
Historically, since its founding in 2003, the United States has invested more than $ 100 billion through PEPFAR, making the most contribution to HIV response around the world.
However, cuts for PEPFAR and USAID support programs have already seriously interfered with the approach to essential HIV services, including anti -retro virus treatment and HIV prevention and testing, according to Australia’s co -author Burnet Institute.
“If another donor state reduces financing, decades of progress to treat and prevent HIV can be solved,” she said.
“It is essential to secure sustainable funding and avoid the resurrection of HIV epidemics.
’10 times increase’
Apart from this, the UN Agency’s head, which coordinates the fight against HIV-AIDS, warned that 6.3 million people will die in the next four years unless support is restored. This represents “10 times increase” from 600,000 AIDS -related deaths recorded worldwide in 2023.
UNNIE BYANYIMA, Managing Director UNAIDS, told Journalists in Geneva on Monday (March 24) that “we will see the actual surge in the disease.”
“We will see it coming back and we will see people die in the way we see in the 90’s and 2000s.”
She also predicted 87 million new infections in 2023 with 1.3 million new infections worldwide.
Mathematical model
The author of the Lancet HIV research estimates the reduction of predicted international aid in 26 countries, including the support of PEPFAR in all countries that depend on foreign aid to support programs to diagnose and prevent HIV using mathematical models.
They found that new infections could be between 1.3 and 6 times the risk of acquiring HIV compared to the case of financing.
According to the researchers, it will have the greatest influence on the vulnerable population with Africa south of the Sahara Desert. It will be a vulnerable population, including drugs, sex workers, men and children who have sex with men.
They demanded multiple approaches to offset the effect of sudden funding cuts and build long -term sustainability.
HIV integration
Rowan Martin-Huges, a senior researcher and co-author of Burnet Institute, said, “Integrating other primary medical services and HIV treatment can improve efficiency and utilize shared resources.
He mentioned that HIV’s domestic funding increased by 52 % in 2022 to 32 % in 2013, with the health insurance that deals with HIV services in Vietnam, centralizing the integration, anti -retro virus treatment and domestic resources mobilization.
Scidev.net said, “If you introduce a proper HIV certain tax payment or integrate HIV service into a wide range of health insurance mechanisms, you can provide additional domestic funding streams.
“These actions are challenging, but they have been successfully attempted in sub -Saharan African countries.”
In many countries, HIV services have existed separately from the rest of the health system supported by the government due to the international focus on the disease, and Martin-Hughes has been supported by HIV funds as the basic pillars of medical workers, infrastructure and other health systems.
“These are the most seriously influenced countries by pausing the aid immediately.”
Angela Muvumba Sellström, a senior researcher at Nordic Africa Institute, believes the results can be reliable.
She said that the short -term results of withdrawing these aids would be a weak health burden, especially in Africa.
Scidev.net said, “Of course, people living in HIV are more vulnerable to HIV -related diseases.
She challenged large -scale funding actors such as African Development Banks, World Banks and IMFs to re -establish some African governments to make more efforts and reduce debt burdens.
