John Nkengasong

Early on Sunday...

I declared a public emergency of international concern over an epidemic of Ebola disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It's actually unfortunate that the U.S.

would take such a decision to cut funding in a country that they have supported for many years.

And it's thanks to the U.S.

efforts that the situation of HIV-AIDS in South Africa had actually decreased and the trajectory was shaped.

U.S.

cuts to HIV funding would rapidly destabilize treatment and prevention programs, and modeling clearly suggests that hundreds of thousands of excess deaths will occur over a decade, and major services will collapse for key populations and reverse us in two decades again.

So it's very, very unfortunate that such measures will be taken, really, to undermine U.S.

's own leadership role that they have played over the last 25 years in controlling HIV-AIDS.

in Africa and in South Africa in particular.

I think it's very clear that even when the United States PEPFAR program, which is the President's Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, was fully supporting South Africa, the government of South Africa contributed in excess of 80%.

in their prevention efforts for HIV and AIDS.

So the leadership has always come from the government of South Africa, and the Global Fund and PEPFAR have contributed about 20% or so.

Having said that, the problem is huge.

The problem of HIV-AIDS in South Africa is the largest problem.

in any country that we can imagine, by far.

So the government of South Africa alone cannot effectively deal with this threat.

I mean, it needs all the partnership that is required from the Global Fund.

It needs the partnership required from the US government.