The fall in international aid funds has already damaged the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the president of a major health fund said today, warning of a long-term impact if the cuts were not reversed.
In the short term, governments have diverted resources, cushioning the immediate impact of the cuts, but “health outcomes” will be affected in years to come, Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told AFP.
The Global Fund has put roughly $5.3 billion into 2024-26 and the institution was waiting for World Health Organization figures for 2025 to see the impact of the cuts on lives, Sands added.
Britain, the United States and other major donors have all slashed relief funds.
“There is no question that the cuts in outside funding have had an impact on health outcomes,” said Sands, a former international banker.
“You saw in 2025 countries moving resources and putting priorities on immediate life-saving activities,” he remarked.
“Treatment was better than prevention in a sense because people were understandably making sure that people who got ill were treated,” he said.
Western governments’ cuts to aid would have a longer impact on fighting diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people every year, he warned.
“We saw a de-prioritisation of some of the longer-term activities in terms of training, capacity development, infrastructure development,” added Sands.
It would be exceedingly difficult to maintain future financial cuts without a rising impact on health outcomes.
Sands said his biggest concern was the fight against malaria, which the World Health Organization estimates kills more than 600,000 people a year. It is the matter “that keeps me awake at nite” at a time when spending was already “inadequate”.
The Global Fund says its work has saved 72 million lives since 2002 and lowered the total death rate from AIDS, TB and malaria by 65 percent.
“If you’re not winning, you’re losing against diseases like this, and we need to keep winning,” he said.
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