Potential foreign aid cuts could lead to millions of HIV infections, deaths: Study
Potential foreign aid cuts could lead to millions of HIV deaths and "soaring" rates of infections around the world, according to a new study published Wednesday evening.
The study authors, comprised of a team from the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and the World Health Organization's (WHO) Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STIs Programs, said international funding has played a major role in reducing HIV transmission and deaths globally.
At least five countries, which together provide more than 90% of global funding to fight HIV, have announced plans to implement significant cuts to foreign aid, generally between 8% and 70% between 2025 and 2026, the authors said. These countries include the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and the Netherlands, according to the study.
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The U.S. has not announced any specific plans to cut foreign aid dedicated to fighting HIV. However, President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his current term, titled Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid that placed a 90-day pause on "foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy."
The study, published in The Lancet HIV, used a mathematical model to look at the effects of aid reductions in 26 countries across Latin America, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
The study authors looked at projected HIV incidence and mortality from 2025 to 2030, with one model basing projections on spending at the most recent rate and four additional models that included foreign aid cuts.
The models estimated the effects of aid reductions, including the possible immediate cessation of the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) support. Launched in 2003, PEPFAR invests billions of dollars in the global HIV/AIDS response.
The authors found that the reduction in aid for HIV prevention and treatment programs could result in 4.4 to 10.8 million additional new HIV infections, which is between a 1.3-to-six-fold increase in potential new infections for those at higher risk of acquiring HIV. The authors also found there could be 770,000 to 2.9 million HIV-related deaths in children and adults worldwide. The latest WHO data reports that 630,000 children and adults died of HIV-related causes globally in 2023.
Overall, funding cuts to fight HIV would cause worldwide infections and deaths to surge back to levels not seen since the early 2000s, the authors said. The greatest impacts would be seen in sub-Saharan Africa, children, and among vulnerable populations, such as people who inject drugs, sex workers, and men who have sex with men, according to the study.
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"There could be an even greater impact in sub-Saharan Africa, where broader prevention efforts, such as distributing condoms and offering pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are at first risk to be discontinued," co-lead study author Dr. Rowan Martin-Hughes of the Burnet Institute said in a statement.
"This, is in addition to disruptions in testing and treatment programs, could cause a surge in new HIV infections, especially in some of the areas where the greatest gains have been made, such as preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV and pediatric HIV deaths," the statement continued.
Several humanitarian nongovernmental organization leaders previously told ABC News that President Trump's freeze of U.S. foreign humanitarian aid and shuttering of the U.S. Agency for International Development is having devastating consequences globally.
Christine Stegling, a deputy executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and an assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, warned that if the Trump administration halts all funding to HIV and AIDS programs, more than six million people could die of AIDS-related causes by 2029.
"The United States has historically been the largest contributor to global efforts to treat and prevent HIV, but the current cuts to PEPFAR and USAID-supported programs have already disrupted access to essential HIV services including for antiretroviral therapy and HIV prevention and testing," co-lead study author Dr. Debra ten Brink of the Burnet Institute said in a press release.
"Looking ahead, if other donor countries reduce funding, decades of progress to treat and prevent HIV could be unraveled," she continued. "It is imperative to secure sustainable financing and avoid a resurgence of the HIV epidemic which could have devastating consequences, not just in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, but globally."
Potential foreign aid cuts could lead to millions of HIV infections, deaths: Study originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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