UNAIDS warns funding cuts and rights rollbacks threaten HIV progress ahead of U.N. meeting

Angeli Acharya, deputy executive director of UNAIDS, said at a United Nations briefing that converging global crises and dramatic cuts in development assistance risk reversing decades of progress against HIV and could derail efforts to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

“We're truly at a perilous moment,” Acharya said, presenting a new UNAIDS report that highlights declines in testing and prevention alongside persistent inequities. She said there were 1.2 million new HIV infections at the end of 2025 and 570,000 AIDS deaths, figures she used to warn that the world is off track of UNAIDS targets, including a 2025 goal of 370,000 new infections.

The report and Acharya's presentation emphasized funding as the core threat. Acharya said global development assistance fell by "over 20%" in 2025; during a later question she described "over 23% decrease from 2024 to 2025." She said donor contributions totaled $8.37 billion in 2024 while UNAIDS estimates resource needs of $21.9 billion by 2030.

Acharya described how funding cuts have already hit prevention and testing programs. She cited: testing programs down by over 20% in high-burden settings; condom funding cut by more than 90% in some cases; and PrEP uptake falling by nearly 40% between 2024 and 2025 among 62 countries reporting to UNAIDS. "Prevention has already been underfunded at just 11% of total HIV spending in 2024," she said, and that limited investment is shrinking.

At the same time, Acharya noted treatment achievements are fragile: 32.1 million people are on life-saving treatment (about 78% of people living with HIV), but roughly 8.8 million people still lack access to treatment. She warned that countries and regions that depend heavily on external financing — for example, parts of West and Central Africa — are especially vulnerable to interruptions that would raise deaths and new infections.

Acharya also warned of deteriorating human-rights conditions that undermine the response. She said criminalization of key populations is increasing and that civic space was "narrowed, obstructed, or completely closed in 159 of 198 countries and territories" in 2025, which discourages testing and care.

Alongside the challenges, Acharya pointed to signs of progress and pathways to sustain gains: rising domestic resource shares (from 28% in 2010 to over 50% in 2024), regional initiatives such as the Accra Reset and African Union roadmaps, and early rollout of innovations. She said 6,000 people across five sub-Saharan African countries had begun receiving long-acting lenacapavir as a prevention option, a step that still falls far short of the estimated 20 million people in need of prevention services.

During a question-and-answer period, Amelie Botollier of AFP asked whether donor declines reflect only mechanical reductions in overall aid or also donor complacency. Acharya answered that both factors are at work: assistance is falling and "a bit of complacency" has set in because fewer people die today than decades ago, which can obscure persistent gaps among children, young women and key populations.

Asked how UNAIDS and partners can overcome donor cuts, Acharya said domestic financing must rise alongside continued global solidarity. She noted that since January 2025 more than 52 countries have pledged increases in domestic financing, but added that transitions to greater country self-reliance require mutual accountability and cannot happen overnight.

Acharya urged countries to adopt a strong political declaration at the U.N. high-level meeting on HIV and AIDS, scheduled for June 22–23 at the U.N. General Assembly, saying the declaration should set new 2030 targets and a road map for sustainable, country- and community-led responses. "Ending AIDS requires shared responsibility, national leadership, and global solidarity," she said.

The briefing closed with a call for sustained funding, stronger community resourcing and protection of civic space to ensure that prevention innovations and treatment gains benefit the people and places most at risk.