UNAIDS says millions of people around the world have lost access to treatment and preventive care due to financial constraints.
In a report released on Tuesday, UNAIDS said the global response to the disease “immediately descended into crisis mode” after the United States halted funding after President Donald Trump took office in January.
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The Trump administration on January 25 suspended all new foreign aid funding except military aid to Israel and Egypt.
Some HIV funding was restored in the second half of the year, but in the wake of Trump’s decision to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), some programs have not resumed.
UNAIDS said the cuts were due to “increasing economic and financial pressures on many low- and middle-income countries”.
It said the lack of funding is having a “profound, lasting impact” on the lives of people around the world.
“People living with HIV have died due to service disruptions, millions of people at high risk of contracting HIV have lost access to the most effective prevention tools available, more than 2 million adolescent girls and young women have been denied essential health services, and community-led organizations have been devastated, with many forced to close their doors,” the report said.
Due to funding cuts, the number of people using the preventive HIV drug, known as PrEP, has fallen by 64 percent in Burundi, 38 percent in Uganda and 21 percent in Vietnam. Condom distribution in Nigeria has declined by 55 percent.
“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we have worked so hard to achieve,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director.
“Behind every data point in this report are people…children miss out on HIV testing, young women miss out on prevention support, and communities suddenly go without services and care. We cannot abandon them.”
Despite the financial crisis, UNAIDS said some positive trends were emerging, including national and regional initiatives to boost health programs and treat the disease.
“Communities are coming together to support each other and the AIDS response. Although some of the worst-affected countries are also some of the most indebted, limiting their ability to invest in HIV, governments have taken rapid action to increase domestic funding,” the report said.
“As a result, some countries have maintained or even increased the number of people receiving HIV treatment.”
The report recommends restructuring low-income countries’ international debt and pausing their payments by 2030 so they can direct more resources to HIV care and prevention.
It also called for “motivating innovation with awards rather than patents and treating health innovations as global public goods in times of pandemic.”
In addition to declining funding, the report highlighted another challenge in the fight against AIDS: “the growing human rights crisis”.
It says, “For the first time in 2025, the number of countries criminalizing same-sex sexual activity and gender expression has increased since UNAIDS began monitoring punitive laws in 2008.”
“Globally, anti-gender and anti-rights movements are growing in influence and geographic reach, threatening the gains made so far on the rights of women and girls, people living with HIV, and LGBTIQ+ people.”
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