The U.S. State Department displayed a highly inaccurate map of Africa during a presentation at the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The map, which appeared during a presentation regarding the department's new health agreements, mislabeled every country on the continent.
The error caused a stir among conference attendees, who took screenshots of the chart and shared them online. Among the various inaccuracies, the map depicted Nigeria as a landlocked country located in the Sahara Desert.
The State Department has taken full responsibility for the situation, acknowledging the mistake as an unfortunate error. The department attributed the blunder to a staffer and is currently conducting a probe to determine if the map was created using AI.