UNAIDS chief warns: ‘The crisis is real’ amid threats to funding

Decades of progress in the world’s struggle against AIDS could be at risk, with funding gaps widening and deaths increasing, according to Africanews plus agencies reported on June 2nd.

UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima addressed the International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) on June 1st. She unveiled concerning statistics, with the potential of up to 4.2 million more AIDS-related deaths, including 300,000 children, by 2029.

As Maghrebi.org reports, Trump’s extensive cuts to US foreign aid could have serious implications in the global fight against AIDS. This is where Byanyima’s concerns stem from, as the US accounts for 73% of all international AIDS response funding.

In 2024 alone, AIDS claimed the lives of 630,000 people, and according to current projections, new HIV infections could reach up to 6.6 million by 2030. Byanyima stressed: “You can see that a pandemic that has been declining could be resurging again. The crisis is real”

The Executive Directors solution lies in profound structural reforms, encouraging wealthy nations to adopt new financing models and policies that enable developing countries to sustain themselves by raising their own resources. She said: “We need rich countries to embrace debt justice, tax justice, intellectual property justice, and global public investment.”

While the future of global AIDS efforts hang in the balance, UNAIDS warns that without the proper reforms, decades of progress could be undone. As donor fatigue deepens and political will thins, the risk isn’t just rising death tolls, but the return of a crisis the world once dared to believe was a thing of the past.

Africanews plus agencies, Maghrebi.org