The world could face a renewed HIV epidemic after international funding for HIV programmes dropped sharply last year, the United Nations agency on AIDS (UNAIDS) warned on Monday.
Before President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the United States provided around 75 per cent of global international HIV funding. Shortly after taking office, Trump temporarily suspended all HIV-related funding before restoring life-saving treatment programmes days later, while most prevention initiatives remained scaled back.
“The international community has entered a period of profound political and financial upheaval that threatens decades of hard-won gains against HIV,“ UNAIDS said in its 60-page report released at the start of an International AIDS conference in Brazil. “Without renewed commitment and action, the world risks a resurgence of the HIV epidemic.”
According to the report, international HIV funding declined by 18 per cent to $7.3 billion in 2025, marking its lowest level in almost 20 years. UNAIDS warned that the reduction threatens to reverse decades of progress that brought new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths to their lowest levels in more than three decades.
“The current fragility of the HIV response puts these gains at risk unless global solidarity is restored and inequalities are addressed.”
The agency also reiterated that the global target of ending AIDS by 2030 is no longer on track, citing funding reductions alongside health emergencies such as Ebola as major obstacles. Around 1.2 million people contracted HIV last year.
While increased domestic spending in several countries helped soften the impact of declining foreign assistance, overall global HIV resources still fell by 6 per cent in 2025, the report said.
However, many governments lacked the capacity to fill the funding gap. Prevention programmes recorded some of the steepest spending cuts in sub-Saharan Africa, the region that accounts for roughly half of all new HIV infections worldwide.
National data from Cameroon, Nigeria and Zambia showed that the number of people receiving pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) dropped by more than 50 per cent.
“HIV funding disruptions severely impacted HIV prevention, testing and key components of treatment programmes, such as the range of community-led services that reach the people most affected by HIV,” the report said.
