NAIROBI, Kenya – The global campaign to end HIV is confronting its most serious reversal in decades, the UNAIDS warned Tuesday, as steep funding cuts and escalating human rights restrictions derail prevention and treatment programmes across dozens of hard-hit countries.
Releasing its 2025 World AIDS Day report titled Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response, the agency said international support has sharply declined, with OECD projections showing external health financing could fall by 30–40 per cent in 2025 compared with 2023.
UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima described the crisis as a “wake-up call” that exposes how fragile global progress has been.
“Behind every data point in this report are people… babies missed for HIV screening, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care,” she said during the launch in Geneva. “We cannot abandon them.”
Prevention Services Hit Hardest
According to the report, disruptions are widespread and immediate:
- 13 countries recorded declines in the number of people newly initiated on treatment
- Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo reported stock-outs of HIV test kits and essential medicines
- Prevention medicines dropped sharply in Uganda (-31%), Viet Nam (-21%) and Burundi (-64%)
- 450,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa lost access to “mother mentors” — community workers crucial for linking pregnant women to care
- Nigeria saw a 55% collapse in condom distribution
Even before the latest shocks, young women bore the brunt of new infections — 570 girls and young women aged 15–24 acquire HIV every day.
UNAIDS warns that the dismantling of prevention programmes risks accelerating infections among this group.
Community-led organisations, long regarded as the backbone of the global HIV response, are also shrinking.
More than 60% of women-led groups report suspending essential services because of funding shortfalls.
Modelling by UNAIDS now suggests that failure to restore prevention efforts could result in 3.3 million additional HIV infections between 2025 and 2030.
Human Rights Reversals Deepen Risks
The funding crunch is unfolding against a backdrop of growing restrictions on civil society and punitive laws targeting marginalised groups.
For the first time since UNAIDS began tracking such laws, the number of countries criminalising same-sex relations and gender expression rose in 2025. Globally, the report notes:
- 168 countries criminalise some aspect of sex work
- 152 criminalise small-scale drug possession
- 64 criminalise same-sex relations
- 14 criminalise transgender people
Tightening restrictions on NGOs — including limits on foreign funding — are further shrinking access to lifesaving services.
Zimbabwe: ‘People Have Not Stopped Needing Services — They’ve Lost Access’
In Zimbabwe, Dr Byrone Chingombe of the Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research (CeSHHAR) said the cuts have been devastating.
“When funding stopped in January, service providers were laid off overnight. Medicines were on the shelves, but the people who deliver them were gone,” he said from Harare. “That disrupted adherence, and more importantly, it disrupted trust.”
CeSHHAR’s HIV testing “case finding” rate has fallen by more than 50%, a drop Chingombe attributes to loss of access rather than reduced need. Community workers, he said, are doing their best to fill the gaps.
He noted glimmers of hope, including strong community resilience and new long-acting prevention tools such as the injectable lenacapavir, which Zimbabwe fast-tracked for approval and is expected to roll out in early 2026.
UNAIDS Issues Global Call to Action
To prevent further erosion of progress, UNAIDS urged governments to:
- Reinforce global solidarity and commitments made at the G20 Leaders Summit
- Maintain and increase HIV funding, especially for countries reliant on external support
- Invest in research and affordable long-acting prevention
- Uphold human rights and protect civil society spaces
“This is our moment to choose,” Byanyima said. “We can allow these shocks to undo decades of hard-won gains, or we can unite behind the shared vision of ending AIDS. Millions of lives depend on the choices we make today.”
