How big US funding slowdown threatens progress on AIDS
Experts and campaigners warn the 2018 Trump budget could deprive about 830,000 people from life-saving anti-AIDS drugs
Paris — Progress in beating back the AIDS epidemic risks being eroded by a funding shortfall set to grow under Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to global health projects, experts and campaigners warned ahead of a major HIV conference. If adopted by US congress, the 2018 Trump budget could deprive about 830,000 people, mostly in Africa, from life-saving anti-AIDS drugs, according to calculations by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a California-based health policy NGO. "We will see lives needlessly being lost," said Linda-Gail Bekker, president of the International AIDS Society hosting about 6,000 experts in Paris from Sunday to take stock of advances in HIV science. "We’re not talking about maybe a slowing down ... if these (US) cuts come about we could very well see a real turnaround in terms of the progress that has been made," she said. A Trump budget could lead to nearly 200,000 new HIV infections, according to the KFF. It could also leave as many as 25-million couples without acc...
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