A recently released report by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, argues that recent gains in fighting HIV and AIDS throughout Africa could be eliminated due to international funding cuts.

The MSF report focuses on southern Africa, where expansion of HIV-related treatment services has helped a number of HIV and AIDS patients and has led to a decrease in overall mortality rates in some countries hardest hit by HIV.

The forthcoming shortages are a result of international HIV funding cuts. Specifically, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international funding group, has been unable to meet the needs of many countries requiring aid. The board of directors of the Global Fund will be meeting in Addis Ababa next week to vote on whether all funding for 2010 will be suspended.

Also, there will be no additional increases in funding from the U.S. PEPFAR program for the next two years.

“The proposed cancellation of the 2010 funding round and other measures to slow the pace of treatment scale-up are punishing the successes of the past years and preventing countries from saving more lives,” said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, the Director of MSF’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign, in a press release.

During recent years, the positive outlook in terms of funding has led to widespread initiation of treatment programs; a loss of funding at this point could mean that many patients who have just begun treatment may be forced to stop. In Uganda, some health facilities have already been forced to stop providing treatment.

The increase in treatment programs in the past has also led to improvement in other areas, such as maternal and child heath. Cases of related diseases such as tuberculosis have also decreased. Continuing to provide funding to countries hardest hit by HIV and AIDS would mean that improvements in other health issues would also follow.

Significant strides have been made in providing treatment to four million people in developing countries. An additional six million people are still awaiting treatment.

For more information, please see the report and press release at the Médecins Sans Frontières Web site.