MOSCOW, November 5 (RIA Novosti) — Leading AIDS activist Stephen Lewis has blamed UK authorities for aid cessation for a health campaign in South Africa aimed at struggle with AIDS.
"Frankly, it's one thing to cut back on contributions to governments or to major international agencies, but to do such damage to struggling civil society is reckless. [Department for International Development] DfID understands that when they cut back they are signing a death warrant for a significant number of South Africans," former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa said as quoted by The Guardian Tuesday.
Taking decisions like that is the height of irresponsibility for an anti-AIDS donor like DfID, according to Lewis. Moreover, those donors who choose to disengage should "recognize the consequences of their actions," he added.
Treatment Actions Campaign (TAC), devoted to providing access to AIDS treatment in South Africa, is currently in need of 10 million rands ($ 904,494). Up to this point the UK continued to be the major funder of AIDS treatment in the world, having allocated 1.6 million UK pounds ($ 2,5 million) to the TAC between 2010 and 2015. Cutting funding has put the TAC, the biggest anti-AIDS organization in South Africa, on the border of destitution.
South Africa remains to be the country with the most HIV/AIDS infected population in the world.
