GENEVA: The sudden halt to US foreign aid funding has been “devastating,” the UNAIDS chief said Monday, warning that without more funding, millions more will die and the global AIDS pandemic will resurge.
The United States has historically been the world’s largest donor of humanitarian assistance, but President Donald Trump has slashed international aid since returning to the White House two months ago.
“It is reasonable for the United States to want to reduce its funding over time, but the sudden withdrawal of life-saving support is having a devastating impact,” UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima told reporters in Geneva.
“We urge for a reconsideration and an urgent restoration of services, life-saving services.”
She warned that without more funding, “there will be an additional... 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths” in the next four years.
At the last count, in 2023, some 600,000 AIDS-related deaths were registered globally, she pointed out.
“So you’re talking of a 10-fold increase.”
At the same time, Byanyima said her agency expected to see “an additional 8.7 million new infections.”
“You’re talking of losing the gains that we have made over the last 25 years. It is very serious.”
Looking further ahead than the next four years, if aid funding is not restored, “in the longer term, we see the AIDS pandemic resurging, and resurging globally,” Byanyima said.
“Not just in the countries where now it has become concentrated, in low-income countries of Africa, but also growing among what we call key populations in Eastern Europe, in Latin America,” she said.
“We will see a... real surge in this disease. We’ll see it come back, and we’ll see people die the way we saw them in the ‘90s and in the 2000s.”
Sudden US aid withdrawal risking millions of lives: UNAIDS chief
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Sudden US aid withdrawal risking millions of lives: UNAIDS chief
- She warned that without more funding there will be an additional 6.3 million AIDS-related deaths in the next four years
Russian drone attack forces power cuts in Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih, military says
- Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid
KYIV: Russian drones struck infrastructure in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, forcing emergency power blackouts for more than 45,000 customers and disrupting heat supplies, military administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said.
“Please fill up on water and charge your devices, if you have the chance. It’s going to be difficult,” Vilkul said on the Telegram messaging app.
Water utility pumping stations switched to generators and water remained in the system, but there could be pressure problems.
The full scale of the attack was not immediately known. There was no comment from Russia about the strike.
Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine’s power plants, substations and transmission lines with missiles and drones, seeking to knock out electricity and heating and hinder industry during the nearly four-year war.
Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid.
Kryvyi Rih, a steel-and-mining hub in the Dnipropetrovsk region and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, has been hit repeatedly, with strikes killing civilians and damaging homes and industry.
The city sits close enough to southern front lines to be within strike range, while its factories, logistics links and workforce make it economically important and a key rear-area center supporting Ukraine’s war effort.
