Efforts to fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria under threat due to funding cuts

Mapaballo Borotho

A Doctors Without Borders (MSF) report warns that global efforts to fight HIV, TB, and Malaria are in jeopardy due to funding shortfalls.
The U.S., once a leading donor, has withheld nearly half of its $6 billion pledge to the Global Fund, threatening decades of progress.
MSF cautions that without urgent support, the world could see a resurgence of these deadly diseases, reversing years of hard-won gains.

Global efforts to combat three of the world’s deadliest diseases, HIV, Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria, are under serious threat due to a lack of funding. This is according to a recent report by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

In January, the Donald Trump Administration announced a suspension and review of all international aid, dealing a major blow to the global health sector.

The U.S. has historically been one of the largest funders of international health programs, but roughly $3 billion of the $6 billion it had pledged to the Global Fund for 2023–2025 remains unfulfilled.

“Key donors, including the U.S., have yet to announce pledges for the Global Fund’s next three-year funding cycle, due in November. It would be a mortal blow should the Global Fund not meet its replenishment targets at this critical juncture in the response to HIV, TB, and malaria,” the report stated.

The Global Fund has been instrumental in strengthening weak health systems across Africa, Asia, and other regions.

Without urgent funding, decades of progress in reducing illness and deaths could be reversed, potentially setting the world back to where it was thirty years ago.

“The consequences are already visible,” said Antonio Flores, Senior HIV/TB Advisor at MSF.

In Honduras, abrupt cuts by PEPFAR halted HIV prevention and care programs. Patients lost access to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) overnight, and health workers lost their jobs. We’re now seeing patients return with advanced opportunistic infections.”

MSF warned that infectious diseases, when left unchecked, only worsen and spread. The organisation stressed that cutting funding undermines years of hard-won progress, while maintaining support for proven strategies and new innovations can save countless lives.

It urged donor countries to sustain their critical commitments to the Global Fund on behalf of vulnerable communities worldwide.