UNAIDS has launched its 2025 World AIDS Day report, Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response, highlighting a severe decline in international HIV funding. OECD projections indicate that external health assistance could fall by 30–40 per cent in 2025 compared with 2023, disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income countries. Executive Director Winnie Byanyima emphasized the human cost of these funding cuts, noting that babies, young women, and vulnerable communities are losing access to essential services and care.
The report indicates that prevention services have been hit hardest. Across 13 countries, fewer people are initiating treatment, while stock-outs of HIV test kits and medicines have been reported in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Distribution of preventive medicines dropped sharply, with Uganda down 31 per cent, Viet Nam 21 per cent, and Burundi 64 per cent. In sub-Saharan Africa, 450,000 women lost access to “mother mentors,” and Nigeria experienced a 55 per cent decline in condom distribution. Community-led organisations, particularly women-led groups, have had to suspend essential services, leaving adolescent girls and young women even more vulnerable. UNAIDS warns that failure to restore prevention programs could result in 3.3 million additional HIV infections between 2025 and 2030.
The crisis is compounded by human rights reversals. Increasing numbers of countries are criminalizing same-sex relations, gender expression, sex work, and drug possession, while civil society faces restrictions on registration and international funding. These legal and regulatory barriers further limit access to life-saving HIV services for marginalised populations.
In Zimbabwe, funding cuts have caused severe disruptions in service delivery. Dr. Byrone Chingombe from CeSHHAR reported that layoffs and interrupted programs led to a 50 per cent drop in HIV testing case-finding, underscoring that the need for services has not diminished. Despite these challenges, community resilience and new long-acting prevention technologies, such as injectable lenacapavir expected in early 2026, offer some hope for mitigating the crisis.
UNAIDS is calling on world leaders to reaffirm global solidarity, maintain and increase HIV funding, invest in innovative prevention methods, uphold human rights, and empower communities. Byanyima emphasized the urgency of these actions, stressing that the decisions made now will determine whether decades of progress in the fight against AIDS are preserved or undone.
