U.S. says ‘error’ mislabelled every African country on AIDS conference map

The U.S. government on Thursday acknowledged an “unfortunate error” that led to a map of Africa with every single country mislabelled being shown at a global AIDS conference this week. The mislabelled map was shown during a presentation at the AIDS 2026 Conference in Rio de Janeiro on the U.S. State Department’s new health program funding agreements with African nations, which are being reworked after the Trump administration reduced global aid last year.Images of the map first appeared Sunday in a Substack post by AIDS expert and activist Emily Bass and were widely shared on LinkedIn. Reuters then viewed video of the presentation and published screenshots of the map in question.The map shows Nigeria, a country on the West African coast, as landlocked in the northern Sahara Desert. Mozambique, on the southeast coast, is errantly labelled further north in the Horn of Africa, where Ethiopia actually is. Story continues below advertisement Although Uganda and Malawi are shown in roughly their real-life positions, their borders are completely redrawn, as are the other countries identified on the map.The colours of each country also do not correspond with those of the country names conn...