The US State Department mislabeled every country on a map of Africa displayed during a presentation at a global AIDS conference in Brazil this week.
The map, which Reuters suggested was made with OpenAI tools, showed Nigeria as landlocked, misplaced Mozambique in the Horn of Africa, and relocated Ivory Coast across the continent. The State Department acknowledged the “confusion” its map caused.
The mishap comes as reports reveal the public health toll of the Trump administration’s cuts to PEPFAR, the US’ flagship HIV initiative; Washington is pulling PEPFAR funding for South Africa, home to the world’s largest HIV epidemic. The map was not only “disrespectful,” an AIDS expert argued, but underscored the US global health strategy’s “loose relationship to the facts.”