Nigeria, seven other countries running out of HIV drugs — WHO warns

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the alarm over a looming shortage of HIV drugs in eight countries, including Nigeria.

The development, which affects six African nations, follows the United States government’s recent decision to halt foreign aid.

The warning comes in the wake of an executive order issued by US President Donald Trump on his first day in office in January, as part of a broader government spending review.

“Disruptions to HIV programmes could undo 20 years of progress,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned.

He said the interruption could result in over 10 million additional HIV cases and three million HIV-related deaths, describing the toll as “more than triple the number of deaths last year.”

In an announcement made during a press conference on Monday by Dr Tedros, WHO listed Nigeria, Kenya, Lesotho, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Mali, along with Haiti and Ukraine as countries facing imminent shortages of life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs.

The US foreign aid suspension, initially slated for 90 days, is part of the Trump administration’s “America First” foreign policy and has had far-reaching implications for global health initiatives. 

The disruption has severely hampered the delivery of critical medical supplies, including HIV drugs, while most programmes under the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have already been terminated.

Although a waiver was granted in February for the US’s flagship HIV initiative, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar), the programme’s operations have been severely affected due to its reliance on USAID and other impacted organisations.

According to Dr Tedros, the situation has led to the “immediate stop to services for HIV treatment, testing and prevention in more than 50 countries.”

Pepfar, which began in 2003, has been instrumental in providing antiretroviral drugs to vulnerable populations globally and has been credited with saving more than 26 million lives worldwide.

Further compounding the crisis, President Trump also announced plans to pull the US out of the WHO during his early days in office, a move that is expected to further strain the agency’s resources.

“The US administration has been extremely generous over many years. And of course, it’s within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent,” Dr Tedros said.

"But the US also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it’s done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources of funding.”

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most affected region globally, with an estimated 25 million people living with HIV, accounting for more than two-thirds of the global total of 38 million. In Nigeria alone, nearly two million people live with the virus, many of whom depend on aid-funded medications. Kenya also ranks among the worst-hit, with around 1.4 million people living with HIV, according to WHO figures.

“We ask the US to reconsider its support for global health, which not only saves lives around the world, it also makes the US safer by preventing outbreaks from spreading internationally,” Dr Tedros said.