Risk of 2,000 new HIV infections a day after US aid freeze, UN says

Guardian Nigeria

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00:00You

00:30I

00:47Mean you can also

01:00who is the Deputy Executive Director, she also...

01:03So this sudden withdrawal of U.S. funding

01:08has led to shutting down of many clinics,

01:11laying off of thousands of health workers.

01:15These are nurses, doctors, lab technicians,

01:21pharmacy workers, all kinds of data entrists.

01:26It's a lot.

01:28And all this means that

01:34we expect to see new infections rising.

01:38UNAIDS has estimated that we could see new,

01:41we may be having 2,000 new infections every day,

01:45more new infections every day.

01:47This is Nina from AFP.

01:51You mentioned the...

01:53If the U.S. assistance

01:58for HIV is not restored after the pause,

02:04as you know, the pause ends in April,

02:09and is not replaced by other funding,

02:13and we have not heard of other governments

02:16pledging to fill the gap.

02:19There will be an additional, in the next four years,

02:236.3 million AIDS-related deaths.

02:286.3 million more in the next four years.

02:34At the last count, 2023,

02:37we had 600,000 deaths globally, AIDS-related deaths.

02:42So you're talking of a ten-fold increase.

02:45No.

02:46This is enough.

02:47No, no.

02:48Wait.

02:49Okay, shut up.

02:50Wait.

02:50Okay.

02:51Okay.

02:52Okay.

02:53We also expect an additional 8.7 million new infections.

03:19At the last count, there were 1.3 million new infections globally in 2023.

03:26You're talking of losing the gains that we have made over the last 25 years.

03:34It is very serious.

03:41In the longer term, we see the AIDS pandemic resurging.

03:47And resurging globally, not just in the countries where now it has become concentrated.

03:57Low-income countries of Africa, but also growing amongst what we call key populations in Eastern

04:05Europe, in Latin America.

04:08We will see a resurge of this, a real surge in this disease.

04:14We'll see it come back and we'll see people dying the way we saw them in the 90s and in

04:20the 2000s.

04:32The U.S. cuts mean that today 27 countries in Africa and Asia are experiencing shortages

04:41of staff, disruptions of diagnostics, treatment, and surveillance systems are collapsing.

04:50So many staff have already lost their jobs.

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