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The U.S. government has pulled the plug on its partnership with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), a trailblazing UN coalition that’s been rallying the world to snuff out AIDS as a public health menace by 2030, tied to the grand vision of the Sustainable Development Goals.
UNAIDS dropped this bombshell on its website Friday, February 28, 2025, sending ripples through the global health scene.
Back on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump rolled out an Executive Order dubbed “Reevaluating and Realigning U.S. Foreign Aid,” slamming a 90-day timeout on all overseas assistance—a move to double-check if it lines up with Washington’s latest foreign policy playbook.
UNAIDS, caught in the crosshairs as a U.S. aid recipient, played ball with the order, hitting pause on its contracts and projects, a step that’s now thrown its mission into uncharted waters.
It, however, said on February 27, 2025, it received a letter from the U.S. Government/USAID “stating they are terminating their agreement with UNAIDS with immediate effect.”
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UNAIDS added, “This is a serious development, which impacts the entire HIV response including in the continuity of life-saving HIV services for people living with and affected by HIV, civil society and our partners.
“In the letter, the U.S. Government/USAID stated, “detailed instructions will follow.” UNAIDS has reached out formally to the U.S. Government for more information.”
As of February 17, 2025, UNAIDS received reports from 52 countries experiencing disruptions in their HIV responses due to the U.S. foreign aid pause.
The findings hit like a thunderclap, exposing a cascade of chaos in Nigeria’s HIV ecosystem—testing, treatment, and prevention efforts thrown into disarray, with grassroots groups and frontline health workers reeling from the fallout.
Nigeria stands tall among the 20 nations most tethered to U.S. cash for HIV meds, soaking up 47 percent of its resources straight from American coffers and a whopping 94 percent from donor streams, according to the report—a lifeline now dangling in the wind.
Back in early February 2025, the Federal Executive Council greenlit a hefty $1.07 billion package to revamp healthcare through the Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity initiative, tossing in an extra N4.8 billion to keep HIV treatment afloat—a bold swing at stability.
With an HIV rate clocking in at 1.4 percent among adults aged 15 to 64, Nigeria’s got roughly two million souls wrestling with the virus, and the National Agency for the Control of AIDS says 1.6 million are holding the line with treatment—no small feat in a storm.
The World Health Organization sounded the alarm in January, fretting over the ripple effects of the U.S. funding freeze on HIV lifelines in poorer nations, where more than 30 million people lean on these programs for survival—a lifeline now teetering on the edge.
