Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service

Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. Sometimes when we talk about budget cuts, about reductions,

for example, in funding for aid programmes, it can sound a bit abstract, a bit bloodless.

But the figures out today by the UN's agency, which deals with HIV and AIDS, are anything but. The startling conclusion from

UN AIDS is that with massive cuts to money from the United States and other major donors,

over the next four years, there could be six million

new HIV infections and a further four million AIDS-related deaths globally. The agency's report

has just been released in South Africa, which has the highest number of people living with

HIV anywhere in the world. It's also home to some of the

world's leading HIV researchers whose work could be heavily affected by the cuts.

First, our Africa correspondent, Miami Jones, is in Johannesburg, and she sent us this report.

I'm at David Coppin Clinic in northern Johannesburg in their waiting room. There's about 50 people here waiting to be seen.

This is a clinic that sees over 200 people a day, most of them from lower incomes, some of them with migrants, and it's been affected by the USAID cuts.

And this is a clinic that is a lifeline for people that often don't have

somewhere else to go. We visited the Vidkopen Clinic shortly after the cuts were first announced

and spoke to some of its patients who were anxious about their impact. So firstly, when I was sick

without the clinic or attending the clinic. My life was so bad.

Daniel is a South African truck driver.

Since I get the treatment from a vet-co pen clinic, I'm fine. So I'm living better than the same.

It's not the same life that I was living before.

So it's possible that there's going to be less staff, less medication. How does

that make you feel? I don't think that my life's going to be better than the way I am. I'm worried

...