State Department Map Incorrectly Labels African Countries at AIDS Conference, Calls Mistake ‘An Unfortunate Error’

The U.S. State Department acknowledged Thursday that a map of Africa used during a presentation at an international AIDS conference this week incorrectly labeled the countries it highlighted, calling the mistake “an unfortunate error.” The map was displayed during an event at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro. It referenced Nigeria, Mozambique, Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi and Cameroon, but none of the countries shown was correctly identified by the lines connecting their names to their locations. Nigeria, which has a coastline, was depicted as landlocked, while Mozambique was placed in the Horn of Africa despite being located in southeastern Africa. Côte d’Ivoire was also shown on the wrong side of the continent. Uganda and Malawi were roughly in the correct areas but had inaccurate borders, while Cameroon appeared in the map’s legend but was not shown on the map itself. The incorrect map first went viral after being shared in a Substack post by AIDS expert Emily Bass. According to Reuters, which analyzed the images, the map also contained “an artificial intelligence watermark that ⁠signals it was made with OpenAI tools.” “The U.S. government’s failure to catch this error before displaying the slide at the top international AIDS conference in the world, in a session that featured the Director General of Nigeria as an invited guest, is not only disrespectful to African collaborators, it’s also a significant tell,” Bass wrote in the Substack post. The State Department acknowledged the mistake in a statement to media outlets, calling it “an unfortunate error caused by a team member who hastily altered the slide deck immediately before the presentation at the AIDS 2026 Conference.” “We take full responsibility for ​the confusion and misrepresentation it ​caused for attendees, including ⁠our African partners,” it continued. The speaker was later identified as Jeff Graham, a top U.S. health official who oversees an initiative known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, ​or PEPFAR. Naturally, the mislabeling drew widespread criticism online and within the AIDS community. Kenneth Ngure, the president-elect of the International AIDS Society, shared his frustration with the error, calling the mislabeled map “disheartening.” “African countries must be taken seriously,” he said in a statement to The New York Times. “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 has significantly rolled back global health funding in several areas, including H.I.V. prevention and treatment efforts. The cuts in 2025 were expected to have a significant impact, with the results expected to be presented at the conference later this week. The State Department did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.