Leaders Warn HIV Progress Is Slowing as Funding Cuts Bite

Four decades after AIDS first emerged as a global crisis, world leaders, advocates, and community representatives gathered at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS issued a stark warning: progress against HIV is slowing just as financial pressures and shrinking support threaten to reverse decades of gains. The meeting, held every five years since 2001, was convened to recommit to ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and to adopt a new Political Declaration guiding the global response over the next five years.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, speaking on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres, reflected on the extraordinary progress achieved through decades of global cooperation, noting that in the 45 years since the first case of AIDS was reported, the world has demonstrated uncommon resolve and solidarity. That effort helped reduce AIDS-related deaths by 70 per cent since their peak in 2004 and brought lifesaving antiretroviral treatment to more than 32 million people worldwide.

But Ms. Mohammed warned that progress remains uneven and fragile. By the end of 2024, 9.2 million people still lacked access to HIV treatment, while 1.3 million people acquired HIV and 630,000 died from AIDS-related causes. "Funding cuts are directly affecting prevention efforts, and the community systems that are so essential to the response," she said.

She called for renewed action across five priority areas: expanding access to prevention and treatment, strengthening community leadership, protecting human rights, increasing financing and reviving international cooperation. "Human rights and equality must continue to guide our response," she said, warning that stigma, discrimination and shrinking civic space continue to place lives at risk.

The Impact of Funding Cuts

In 2025, abrupt funding cuts disrupted the systems that made progress possible, especially in high-burden countries reliant on sustained investment in HIV programmes across Africa and parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Prevention efforts stalled, clinics faced stockouts of essential medicines, and health workers were laid off. Systems built over decades began to unravel in months.

Community activists experienced the fallout firsthand. Florence Riako Anam, of the Global Network of People Living with HIV, described overwhelmed outpatient departments and chaos that pushed mothers and young people away from care. This disruption is particularly dangerous because children's invisibility in the HIV response predated the funding cuts.

Children at Risk

Even before these disruptions, the world was falling short in protecting children. Today, more than 2.4 million children and adolescents are living with HIV, yet only about 55 per cent are receiving lifesaving treatment—far behind adults. Every day, around 200 children still die from AIDS-related causes. In West and Central Africa, treatment coverage for pregnant women is too low. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, one of the few regions where infections are rising, any disruption risks accelerating the epidemic further. In Latin America and the Caribbean, persistent inequalities continue to leave marginalised communities, including young people, without consistent access to prevention and care.

A Cost of Inaction

A Cost of Inaction analysis from UNICEF and UNAIDS underscored what is at stake. If there is a 50 per cent reduction in HIV interventions for treatment and prevention, the world could face a worst-case scenario of up to three million children newly infected with HIV by 2040 and 1.8 million children dying from AIDS-related causes. The analysis highlights the potential consequences of reduced HIV interventions, making clear that the gains of the past four decades are fragile.

A Glimmer of Hope

Despite the dire warnings, there are tools that could help turn the tide. Lenacapavir, a long-acting prevention option, can protect adolescent girls and young women with just two injections a year. Such innovations offer a path forward, but they require sustained investment and political will to reach those most in need.