Recently, it has been claimed on Indian social media that the United Nations stated millions of people in Bangladesh could die from AIDS because Trump halted aid.
See the Facebook post making this claim here (Archive).
Fact-check
Rumor Scanner team’s investigation found that the United Nations did not make any statement claiming that millions of people in Bangladesh could die from AIDS due to Trump halting aid. Instead, the head of the UN’s AIDS program commented that millions of people could die from AIDS as a result of Donald Trump’s decision to suspend U.S. aid programs. However, Bangladesh was not mentioned in his statement. In an interview with AFP, he specifically referred to Africa. Moreover, Bangladesh does not have millions of AIDS patients for such a high number of deaths to occur.
During the investigation, Rumor Scanner found a news report on the website of the French media outlet France 24, featuring an interview with Winnie Byanyima, the head of the United Nations AIDS program, regarding this issue. In this interview with AFP, she stated, “It’s dramatic in many countries. I need to sound the alarm so that it’s very clear that this is a big part (of AIDS relief funding). If it goes away, people are going to die.”
The same report reveals that Donald Trump suspended all aid under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for 90 days. However, his administration later announced that medical assistance would continue. Despite this, African officials stated that they were no longer receiving aid.
At no point in this report or Byanyima’s statement is Bangladesh mentioned.
In other words, the claim that the UN linked millions of AIDS deaths in Bangladesh to Trump’s aid freeze is entirely baseless.
According to a report published by the national daily Prothom Alo on December 1 last year, a total of 1,438 new AIDS cases were detected in Bangladesh between November 2023 and October of the previous year. During this period, 195 people died from AIDS. The first HIV-positive case in Bangladesh was identified in 1989, and the latest figures represent the highest number of AIDS cases recorded in the country so far.
According to Prothom Alo, 266 people died from HIV/AIDS in 2023. However, at the time of the 2024 report’s publication, the number of deaths recorded was 195.
In other words, the number of AIDS patients in Bangladesh is not in the millions. Therefore, the claim that millions of people are at risk of dying from AIDS in the country is baseless.
Conclusion
The claim that the UN stated millions could die of AIDS in Bangladesh due to Trump’s aid freeze is misleading.
