US government presents map of Africa with every country wrong at global Aids conference 'after team member changed slide at the last minute'

See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 04:32 EDT, 31 July 2026 | Updated: 04:58 EDT, 31 July 2026 A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at a ⁠conference in Brazil, after a team member 'changed the slide' at the last minute.Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in ⁠Rio de Janeiro last week, which shows the errant map displayed halfway through a presentation about the State Department's new health agreements.A Reuters analysis found that the image of the map included in the presentation bore an artificial intelligence watermark indicating it was made with OpenAI tools. The ​company said it was investigating the report.The State Department said it took 'full responsibility' ‌for the confusion caused and that the map had been produced by a team member who hastily changed ‌the slide deck before the event.The map showed Nigeria, where the US currently has several hundred troops deployed, as landlocked in the Sahara desert. Mozambique, which is in south-eastern Africa, was relocated to the Horn of Africa, while Côte d'Ivoire in west Africa was placed on the other side of the continent.Screenshots of the map first appeared in a Substack post by the Aids expert Emily Bass and were widely ‌shared on LinkedIn, with one post garnering about 40,000 views. A screen shows a US government map of Africa with mislabeled countries during a State Department presentation People take part in a protest during the opening of AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference'Whoever created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to ​check their work,' wrote Matt Petit, who focuses on AI and geopolitics at the Atlantic Council, in the post.In a statement, the State Department said: 'We take full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners.' The speaker at the conference was Jeff Graham, the ⁠top US health envoy who oversees the initiative known as the President's Emergency Plan ​for Aids Relief, or Pepfar. He ​did not reply to requests for comment.The ​State Department said the discussions at the conference were 'substantive and constructive' despite the map ​and that it remained ‌committed to fighting Aids ​with real results. The ​Trump administration's decision last year to pause funding pending a review disrupted aid programs worldwide, but Pepfar's core work, such as the provision of life-saving drugs, has largely resumed. The US is scaling back other areas of its spending, including on prevention and surveillance, and plans to fully phase out the program in South Africa.Despite the massive cuts, the US still accounts for 74 percent of public funding devoted to combating HIV worldwide, according to a UNAIDS report published for the Rio conference.