Amid unprecedented cuts to HIV/AIDS response globally, and to mark World AIDS Day, the Institute of Contemporary Arts is screening The Independent’s searing documentary about the deadly impact of the collapse of USAID funding.
Death Sentence, which was filmed across Uganda and Zimbabwe, reveals first-hand the fatal consequences of the abrupt collapse of USAID this year and offers a grim insight into a world if funding cuts by other countries including the UK go ahead as well.
The documentary paints a stark picture of the human cost of his USAID cuts to PEPFAR, the US’s global response to HIV/AIDS, which has saved millions of lives and long been considered one of the most successful health initiatives of our time. Speaking to The Independent in the film, President Donald Trump defended the decision and accused European countries of failing to contribute to the global HIV response.
But with no safety nets, and no time to secure alternative support, HIV patients are dying after losing access to medication, mothers are unable to prevent transmission to their unborn babies, infections are soaring and medics are forced to work for free with shrinking supplies.
“Following cuts by other major international donors, the abrupt pause in US funding at the beginning of the year delivered a systemic shock to the global AIDS response,” said Christine Stegling, UNAIDS’s Deputy Executive Director who is due to speak at the ICA event on 30 November.
“Children have been lost to treatment, young women have been deprived of HIV prevention programmes and vulnerable communities have been left without care.”
The pressure has now increased as more countries have followed suit, she added.
This month the UK reduced 150 million dollars from its previous contributions to the Global Fund fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, putting some 250,000 lives at risk, according to The Independent’s own reporting.
Further cuts to foreign aid that will impact HIV and AIDS programmes are expected as part of plans to shift money away from international development to pay for defence.
The world had been on track to end the AIDS pandemic by 2030. Instead, millions more could die if these cuts remain in place in full.
But UNAIDS’s Stegling said “there is hope”.
“If donors lean in today and invest in new innovations like long acting injectable medicines that prevent new HIV infections, the AIDS response can be transformed and future treatment costs drastically reduced,” she added.
It will be screened at the ICA on 30 November, followed by a panel including Lord Chris Smith, Chancellor of Cambridge University and former Secretary of State alongside MSF’s lead on chronic diseases, Charles Ssonko, and MSI’s Tanzania Country Director, Patrick Kinemo.
