A senior health official with the State Department presenting at an international AIDS conference in Brazil this week used a map of Africa to illustrate U.S. government funding for H.I.V. programs on the continent.
There was only one problem. The map incorrectly identified several African countries:
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Nigeria, a coastal country in western Africa, was landlocked in the Sahara;
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Mozambique, a coastal state in southeastern Africa, was similarly landlocked and relocated to the Horn of Africa;
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Ivory Coast, a coastal country in western Africa, was made into a southern African state;
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Uganda and Malawi were roughly in the correct vicinity of the continent, but the borders were inaccurate;
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The legend also referenced Cameroon, but the map did not include the country.
The map appeared to show where the State Department might direct health grants during a pre-conference event at AIDS 2026, which is being hosted by the International AIDS Society in Rio de Janeiro. The session focused on the status of U.S. government relations with governments in Africa.
An analysis by Reuters, which obtained images from the session, found that the map contained an artificial intelligence watermark associated with tools from OpenAI. Screenshots of the map were first published in a Substack post by Emily Bass, an AIDS expert and writer, and were widely shared on LinkedIn.
The State Department called the misprint “an unfortunate error” in a statement and said it resulted from a team member who “hastily altered” a slide before the presentation. The department said it took “full responsibility” for the misprint.
Kenneth Ngure, the president-elect of the International AIDS Society, called the use of the map at the conference “disheartening.”
“African countries must be taken seriously,” he said in a statement. “The African continent continues to bear the greatest burden of the H.I.V. pandemic, and our focus must now return to advancing the H.I.V. response.”
The Trump administration’s cuts to the largest global H.I.V. program last year have resulted in drastic drops in both prevention efforts and treatment. The program, known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, supported treatment for about 77,000 fewer children in 2025 than it had the previous year, a 14 percent decline, according to a study, the results of which are expected to be presented at the conference this week.
A State Department spokesman said the department was shifting away from a “legacy assistance model” to “genuine country ownership.”
