‘Foolish’ government cuts could take Aids pandemic back to 1980s, warns former cabinet minister
The first MP to reveal he is HIV positive has warned that “foolish” government cuts to external spending risk sending the AIDS epidemic back to the 1980s, when a diagnosis felt like a death sentence.
Former foreign secretary Lord Chris Smith publicly revealed his HIV-positive status in 2005, becoming the first British MP to come out as gay in the mid-1980s.
In a stunning intervention, he told a meeting of campaigners, charities and journalists: Independent: “The real tragedy is happening right now with aid cuts from the US and UK [is that poorer countries around the world] “I will go back to what I encountered in 1987.”
In November, the United Kingdom announced a 15 percent cut in its contribution to the largest international funder of HIV treatment and prevention, as part of deep cuts to overseas aid spending to shift money to defence.
Lord Smith, now Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “The UK government has made what, in my opinion, is a very stupid decision.”
“They made the wise decision that we needed to invest more in defence, but they made the very stupid decision to raid the international aid budget to fund it. That was a mistake.”
Lord Smith was addressing the audience at a screening. Independent’s chief international correspondent Bel Trew’s documentary at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in London about the deadly cost of America’s cuts to HIV services. The event was organized on the occasion of World AIDS Day.
Britain’s decision to cut off the vast majority of foreign aid funding was made worse by Donald Trump’s decision to cut off the vast majority of foreign aid funding when he took office in January.
Although the U.S. eventually restored some funding, global efforts to treat HIV and prevent new infections have been largely disrupted in the past year. Trew told viewers at the screening that at least three people interviewed for the documentary had died since filming due to aid cuts that prevented them from accessing life-saving HIV drugs.
“We must never forget that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the rest of the world who have no knowledge. [HIV] Lord Smith said: “And the situation has become much worse with the stroke of a presidential pen.”
The UK may still retain other sources of HIV funding, including from UN agencies. Independent He is calling on Sir Keir Starmer to do so.
Christine Stegling, deputy director of UNAIDS, the UN’s AIDS agency, was working in Botswana at the height of the HIV epidemic in the 2000s.
“Many of us lost our families and friends,” he said. When global funding cuts were announced this year, “it was the moment we realized: [the pandemic] “If it wasn’t something really serious it would still look like this.”
Even so, he said, the goal of ending AIDS as a public health emergency by 2030 remains off the table, with “the right resources… provided to the right communities at the right time” (including new preventive drugs to help reduce the infection rate).
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) HIV consultant Dr. Charles Sonko also echoed these hopes and fears: “If people stop treatment, the virus will multiply. They will get sick again. They will be hospitalized. Hospitals will be full. In fact, we will go back twenty years.”
“In 2005, I was receiving treatment for HIV and everyone was devastated. Families were devastated. Health workers were devastated.”
However, Dr Ssonko said there were scientific discoveries that could control the HIV epidemic: “Long-acting treatments already exist. But I think the biggest problem we have today is financing.”
Lord Smith suggested the cuts could also put the development of new medicines at risk in the future. “If there is no funding for the distribution of drugs, no research on drugs will be done in the first place.”
But Dr Ssonko also challenged countries in the global South to “step up” and fund their own HIV responses.
“I think there has been a period of two decades or more where countries have been dependent on donor funds.
“For sustainability… our own countries need to start stepping up and supporting. I’ve worked with communities and I know how much communities can help themselves,” he said.
“I think the biggest lesson learned from all of this, from this shocking system collapse that we’ve had, is that there was an outsized involvement of one particular donor,” Ms. Stegling added, referring to the United States.
While many countries have moved toward paying more for their HIV programs over time, the pace of cuts has thrown plans into chaos.
“We were on a good path,” he said. “This sudden disruption is what makes this so difficult.”
Dozens of activists, including people living with HIV, staged a “die-in” demonstration in Trafalgar Square to mark World Aids Day, demanding the British government reverse cuts to HIV and AIDS treatment and prevention services.
Crowds of members of the ACT UP protest group held tombstone-shaped banners and chanted slogans: “We mourn the dead, we fight like hell for the living.”
Dan, a member who has been living with HIV for more than 20 years, said millions more could die with global disruptions as groundbreaking new preventative drugs like Lenacapavir become available. When administered effectively, the drug can bring infection rates to zero.
Instead, he said investment should be aimed at breaking “deadly monopolies” around new medicines and making them affordable for everyone.
Sign our petition For Keir Starmer to protect HIV funding here.
This article is part of The Independent Rethinking Global Aid project
