Online Reporter
United States officials attending a major health conference in Brazil mislabelled the African countries they showed on a map, causing an online stir and a subsequent admission of error from the Department of State.
Attendees at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro earlier last week took videos and screenshots of the highly inaccurate African map and posted them online, garnering thousands of views — and ridicule from netizens.
Video footage reviewed by the Reuters news agency showed the map pop up halfway through a presentation of the US State Department’s controversial new health agreements with African countries, following the Trump administration’s unprecedented and deadly aid cuts. The map appeared to show Nigeria in the Sahara, while Mozambique, which is in southeastern Africa, was placed in the eastern Horn of Africa.
Cote d’ Ivoire, in West Africa, was placed on the opposite side of the continent.
Boundaries on the map were also mere blobs and did not represent any real countries.
Top US health envoy Jeff Graham, who heads the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), was speaking at the conference.
His past deployments included Ghana and Ethiopia, according to his State Department profile. — Reuters
Bongani Ndlovu