(Johannesburg)  Cuts in donor funding could cause an HIV “nightmare,” the United Nations’ AIDS agency chief warned Monday.

Michel Sidibe appealed to government and private donors to keep investing in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international financing institution. He said that cuts in donations will decrease the availability of free or subsidized life-saving drugs to African patients.

An estimated 94 percent of patients on anti-retroviral treatment in Africa count on external donor funds to provide their medications, Sidibe said.

“If we stop now, if we reduce the financing, the people who are on treatment today … we will transform their hope for universal access into a universal nightmare, because they will start dying,” Sidibe told The Associated Press Monday.

Read the full article on blog.taragana.com.

See the Economic crisis and HIV and AIDS report (PDF).

See also: UNAIDS Director Cautions Against Funding Cuts To Global Fund on Kaiser Global Health.