The UK government has reduced funding for a significant HIV prevention fund helping to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria around the world.
The move to slash funding follows last year’s pledge of £1.4 billion to The Global Fund, which has now been reduced to £1 billion.
All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on HIV and AIDS has spoken out against the funding cut, explaining that the move could “jeopardise the UK’s own domestic efforts in ending HIV”.
“As we’ve clearly learned from COVID-19, pandemics don’t respect borders. If we can’t control HIV globally, it’ll jeopardise our domestic efforts,” a statement from the group said.
The group also described the move as “disappointing”, highlighting that other G7 nations had done the opposite and increased funding.
“While I welcome the funding pledge, which has come already two months late because of political turmoil in the Tory party, it is almost a 30 per cent cut in funding when all other G7 nations have increased their contribution by almost 30 per cent,” Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle explained to Pinknews.
“This cut will mean less research into curing HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, it will make it harder to reach our ambitious target to eliminate new HIV transmissions by 2030, and it will slow vital research.”
The recent reduction in funding also follows recent government cuts to foreign aid and funding for HIV and AIDS organisations, including UNAIDS – a move that a StopAIDS report described as “setting the stage for a resurgence of the [HIV/AIDS] pandemic”.
