World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed concern over the pause of funding for HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries.
Gatekeepers News reports that this follows the recent executive order of funding pause for HIV treatment in developing countries by the United States (US) president, Donald Trump.
The US State Department hence suspended disbursement of funds from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
WHO in a statement, said 39.9 million people were living with HIV globally at the end of 2023.
It noted that these programmes provide access to life-saving HIV therapy to more than 30 million people worldwide.
The statement reads, “A funding halt for HIV programmes can put people living with HIV at immediate increased risk of illness and death and undermine efforts to prevent transmission in communities and countries.”
”Such measures, if prolonged, could lead to rises in new infections and deaths, reversing decades of progress and potentially taking the world back to the 1980s and 1990s when millions died of HIV every year globally, including many in the United States of America.”
“For the global community, this could result in significant setbacks to progress in partnerships and investments in scientific advances that have been the cornerstone of good public health programming, including innovative diagnostics, affordable medicines, and community delivery models of HIV care.”
WHO urged the US government to grant additional exemptions to facilitate delivery of lifesaving HIV treatment and care.
