HIV Prevention Crisis: How Funding Cuts Created "Most Significant Setback in Decades"

World AIDS Day 2025 is observed every year on December 1 to raise awareness on HIV and fight stigma.

The report showed that 40.8 million people are currently living with HIV worldwide -- 1.3 million new infections occurred in 2024, and 9.2 million people are still not accessing treatment.

Abrupt reductions in international HIV assistance in 2025, initiated by US President Donald Trump following his swearing-in in January this year, deepened existing funding shortfalls.

The US has been the largest contributor to global HIV funding, but it permanently discontinued support for the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for HIV treatment and prevention.

The report showed that the prevention services -- already under strain before the crisis -- have been hit hardest with major reductions in access to medicines to prevent HIV (pre-exposure prophylaxis referred to as PrEP) and sharp declines in voluntary medical male circumcision for HIV prevention.

The dismantling of HIV prevention programmes designed with and for young women, deprived adolescent girls, and young women of HIV prevention, mental health, and gender-based violence services in many countries. This increases their vulnerability further -- already in 2024, there were globally 570 new HIV infections every day among young women and girls aged 15-24.

Community-led organisations -- the backbone of the HIV response and who were able to reach people most vulnerable to HIV -- report widespread closures. More than 60 per cent of women-led organisations suspended essential programmes.

Services for key populations, including men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, and transgender people, have also been severely impacted, the report said.

“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS.

“Behind every data point in this report are people -- babies and children missed for HIV screening or early HIV diagnosis, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them. We must overcome this disruption and transform the AIDS response,” Byanyima added.

A failure to reach the 2030 global HIV targets of the next Global AIDS Strategy could result in an additional 3.3 million new HIV infections between 2025 and 2030.

A previous UNAIDS report showed that it could lead to more than four million additional AIDS-related deaths and six million additional new HIV infections by 2029.

Despite these challenges, several countries have taken swift action in a bid to close funding gaps. As a result, many countries are showing resilience when it comes to HIV treatment delivery, the report said.

Innovation is also gaining momentum. HIV prevention technologies --including twice-yearly injections to prevent HIV -- have the potential to prevent tens of thousands of new infections in high-burden settings.

Byanyima called out on governments to show "political courage... invest in communities, in prevention, in innovation and in protecting human rights as the path to end AIDS.”

- IANS