US State Department admits error after incorrectly labelling Nigeria and other African countries at global AIDS conference

The US State Department has apologised after displaying an AI-generated map that incorrectly labelled several African countries during a presentation at the 26th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026) in Brazil.

The map, used during a session on the State Department’s new global health agreements, misplaced several countries across the continent. Nigeria was incorrectly shown as a landlocked country in the Sahara Desert instead of West Africa, while Mozambique appeared in the Horn of Africa rather than southeastern Africa. Côte d’Ivoire was also placed on the wrong side of the continent.

The errors drew widespread attention after conference attendees photographed the slide and shared it online. According to Reuters, analysis of the presentation video showed the image carried a watermark indicating it had been generated using OpenAI tools. OpenAI said it was investigating the report.

The State Department accepted responsibility for the mistake, attributing it to a staff member who hurriedly modified the presentation shortly before the session. “We take full responsibility for the confusion and misrepresentation it caused for attendees, including our African partners,” the department said in a statement.

The presentation was delivered by Jeff Graham, the senior US health official overseeing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), one of the world’s largest HIV/AIDS programmes. The incident prompted criticism from health and policy experts, who questioned how the geographical errors passed official quality checks.

Matt Petit, an artificial intelligence and geopolitics specialist at the Atlantic Council, told Reuters the slide reflected a lack of basic geographical knowledge and inadequate quality control before it was presented.

The inaccurate map gained wider attention after AIDS researcher Emily Bass shared screenshots in a Substack post, with the images subsequently circulating across social media platforms.

The incident comes as the United States reviews its overseas health assistance under President Donald Trump’s administration. While PEPFAR has largely resumed supplying life-saving HIV medicines following last year’s foreign aid review, US funding for disease prevention, surveillance and other health programmes has been reduced. The administration has also announced plans to phase out PEPFAR operations in South Africa as part of a broader shift in its global health strategy.