WHO Warns of HIV Crisis as Funding Pause Threatens 30M Patients

The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed deep concern over the implications of the immediate funding pause for HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries. The organization in a statement said those programmes provide access to life-saving HIV therapy to more than 30 million people worldwide.

WHO said 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. It said 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.

WHO called on the United States Government to enable additional exemptions to ensure the delivery of lifesaving HIV treatment and care.  Globally, 39.9 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2023.