The global economic downturn has forced donors to cut aid for HIV/AIDS in eight African countries. Doctors feel that these measures are forcing them to turn away people with HIV/AIDS. It will have a severe impact on these patients and most of them will fall severely ill and die due to this.

Experts feel that these cuts will severely impact people with HIV/AIDS in eight African countries. They have called on rich countries to donate money to these poor countries. They point that these cuts will arrest the progress made in the last few years to counter this disease.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors without Borders has also called on donors to ensure that cuts are not made to HIV/AIDS programs. A study undertaken by them looked at AIDS programs in Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. It revealed that these funding cuts are having a crippling impact on HIV/AIDS treatment programs.

Many clinics in Kenya fear that they will run out of money soon. Policy makers in Mozambique and Uganda are also worried about the impact these cuts will have on HIV/AIDS treatment programs.

Most of the donors were citing global recession as the cause of these cuts. These changes are especially severe in South Africa which has an estimated 5.7 million people infected with HIV. This is more than any other country in the whole world.