Aid cuts hit AIDS, TB and malaria fight, fund says

International aid cuts have already affected the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said Wednesday.

Peter Sands, the fund's executive director, said countries had softened the immediate impact by shifting resources toward urgent treatment, but warned that health outcomes would suffer in coming years unless cuts were reversed.

“There is no doubt that the reductions in external funding have had an impact on health outcomes,” Sands told reporters. He said treatment had fared better than prevention because countries prioritised people who were already ill.

Sands said some longer-term work, including training, capacity development and infrastructure development, had been given lower priority. He warned that further funding reductions would be very difficult to sustain without a growing effect on health outcomes.

The Global Fund invested about $5.3 billion in the 2024-26 period, according to Sands. He said the institution was waiting for World Health Organization statistics for 2025 to assess the effect of funding cuts on lives.

Sands said he was especially worried about malaria, which the WHO estimates kills more than 600,000 people a year, because spending was already inadequate.

The Global Fund says its work since 2002 has helped save 72 million lives and cut the overall death rate from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 65 percent.