Are we really surprised? Unfortunately, no.
A new study has found that only a small portion of the HIV funding across the world is being used on gay/bi men and trans women. The study was conducted by Dutch charity Aidsfond, according to the Thomas Reuters Foundation. The results found that gay and and bisexual men make up one in five new HIV infections. Despite that, gay/bi men receive around 1% of the 57 billion dollars in global donor funding between the years of 2016 and 2018. This money is used for treating the virus and fight off its spread.
As for where this funding gap was most noticed, that would be in Latin America. In Latin America, gay/bi men made up 40% of 2018’s new infections but only received 0.5% of the funding between 2016 and 2018.
But that’s not all. Transgender people made up 1% of new HIV infections across the world in 2018. Despite that, they received just 0.06% of the total global funding. So where did all that money go? Mostly to the general population within middle-income countries.
After receiving news of this study, advocates for people living with HIV said that bias is the root cause of this problem.
“Because of stigma and discrimination, because of social attitudes that are derogatory… all of these things influence the way in which development partners designate resources,” said Brian Macharia from the Gay & Lesbian Coalition of Kenya.
Source: The Thomas Reuters Foundation,
