Cuts in support for anti-AIDS efforts in Africa by wealthy countries due to the global financial crisis are crippling health-care programs, the aid group Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

A study of AIDS programs in eight Africa countries by the international charity found widespread effects of the money cuts, with clinics turning away patients due to lack of resources.

The organization urged wealthy nations to step up and fulfill their commitments despite the recession’s impact on their coffers. The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has seen its budget increase slightly, from $6.8-billion in 2010 to just under $7-billion for 2011, according to the plan’s head, Eric Goosby. But the Doctors Without Borders study found that U.S. government aid to international efforts to fight AIDS has essentially remained flat.

Mr. Goosby countered that the number of people whose AIDS treatment the United States directly supports jumped from 1.6 million to nearly 2.5 million in 2009. “The metric for success is not dollars spent but actual lives saved,” he said.