The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed “deep concern” yesterday (Tuesday) over the decision by President Donald Trump’s administration to suspend funding for AIDS programs in developing countries and called on US authorities to reconsider that position.

“We urge the US government to allow further exemptions to guarantee the provision of life-saving AIDS treatment,” the WHO said in a statement, recalling that these programmes allow 30 million people internationally to receive essential medicines.

Just 24 hours after Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term in the White House on January 20, his administration announced on Friday the suspension of most US international aid, with the only exceptions being aid to Israel and Egypt, as well as food aid for emergencies.

The PEPFAR program had begun under George W. Bush in 2003 and is considered a key pillar of the fight against AIDS and a spectacular success. It is directly affected by the suspension of aid.

By the end of 2023, 39 million people worldwide were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Trump administration to add “additional exemptions” given the importance of PEPFAR in the fight against this epidemic, which continues to rage despite significant advances in prevention.

“Cutting off funding for HIV programs could expose people living with the virus to an immediate increased risk of illness and death and undermine transmission prevention efforts in communities and countries,” the WHO, the organization from which U.S. President Trump expressed his intention to withdraw on the first day of his second term, said in the statement.

According to US media, the White House has banned all contact with him.

For the international community, cutting off funding “may lead to significant concessions” on the investigation, according to the agency.

“Such measures, if prolonged, could lead to an increase in new infections and deaths, reversing decades of progress and potentially returning the world to the years of the 1980s and 1990s, when millions of people were dying due to HIV each year on an international scale, including many in the US,” warns the Geneva-based WHO.

“The current suspension of PEPFAR funding will have a direct impact on millions of people who depend on a predictable supply of safe and effective antiretroviral drugs,” the WHO summarizes.

PEPFAR involves over 50 countries around the world and, over the past two decades, its funding “has enabled over 26 million lives to be saved,” it stresses. Currently, it allows HIV treatment to be offered to over 20 million people infected, including 566,000 children under 15 years of age.

The WHO and its partners have already begun efforts to reduce donor participation in the programme, the document also notes, but “sudden and prolonged programme interruptions do not allow for a smooth transition and put the lives of millions of people at risk.”