Johannesburg ? Doctors are being forced to turn away people with HIV/AIDS — meaning they will fall ill and almost certainly die — in eight African countries as donors cut funding amid the global economic meltdown, an aid group said Thursday.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, called on rich countries to fulfill their obligations to poorer nations, saying the funding cuts threaten to unravel years of progress on the continent hardest hit by AIDS.

The MSF study looked at AIDS programs in Congo, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe, and found the effects of funding cuts widespread.

In Kenya, clinics fear running out of money. Health policy makers in Mozambique and Uganda say they can’t afford to follow international standards for when treatment should be started.

Dr. Eric Goemaere, medical coordinator in South Africa for MSF, said donors were citing the global recession as a reason for cutbacks. But he said that was no excuse for backing off on commitments to step up the fight against AIDS.

Margie Hardman, founder of a clinic in an impoverished area of eastern South Africa that cares for some 2,000 AIDS patients, told MSF that U.S.-funded donors have told her to stop enrolling new patients.

“We had to turn these patients away and refer them to local government hospitals or clinics,” Hardman said.

MSF found in other countries, people were turned away because the clinics did not have enough medication.

Jimmy Gideyi, an AIDS activist from Kenya who joined MSF officials at Thursday’s news conference in South Africa, said he was too weak to work when he started AIDS drugs six years ago. He quickly gained strength, and the 55-year-old widower was able to raise his three sons delivering food aid and doing other jobs for the United Nations.

Now, he said, he worries about the future for his sons, aged 26, 24 and 10.

“Suppose one of them contracts HIV,” he said. “Will he be able to access quality HIV to treatment? Or will he be left to die?”

MSF said the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — a major, independent supporter of AIDS programs around the world — was under pressure from the wealthy governments that fund it to cut back. The fund’s budget for the next three years will be determined at meetings in October.