A United States government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The error occurred halfway through a briefing on new health agreements led by Jeff Graham, the top US health envoy overseeing PEPFAR.

The map image contained an artificial intelligence watermark indicating it was created with OpenAI tools. Reuters viewed a video of the presentation confirming the display. Screenshots of the erroneous map first appeared in a Substack post by AIDS expert Emily Bass.

One LinkedIn post featuring the screenshots garnered about 40,000 views. The geographic inaccuracies were extensive: Nigeria, a coastal country in western Africa, was shown as landlocked in the Sahara Desert. Mozambique was relocated to the Horn of Africa, and Ivory Coast was placed on the opposite side of the continent.

Responsibility and response

The State Department stated that the map was produced by a team member who hastily changed the slide deck before the event. Despite the error, the department described the conference discussions as substantive and constructive, affirming its commitment to fighting AIDS with real results.

Matt Petit, an expert on AI and geopolitics at the Atlantic Council, criticized the oversight. He wrote that whoever created and approved the slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work. Graham did not reply to requests for comment.

Reports regarding OpenAI’s response differ. Some sources state the company is investigating the report, while others indicate it did not respond to a request for comment.

PEPFAR context

The incident occurs against a backdrop of shifting US aid priorities. The Trump administration’s decision last year to pause funding pending a review disrupted aid programs worldwide. While PEPFAR’s core work, such as the provision of life-saving drugs, has largely resumed, the US is scaling back other spending on prevention and surveillance.

The US plans to fully phase out PEPFAR in South Africa. The United States currently has several hundred troops deployed in Nigeria.