World AIDS Day 2025: A Crisis in Funding and Human Rights

The United Nations marks 1 December as World AIDS Day. This year, however, the world has less to celebrate in our collective effort to combat this epidemic, due to historic funding cuts and a growing human rights crisis in the international AIDS response.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which leads global efforts to achieve the goal of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths, released a report earlier this year highlighting the impact of these crises on countries most affected by AIDS.

HIV and AIDS remain significant threats to global public health.

According to recent UNAIDS statistics, there were 40.8 million people globally living with HIV in 2024, and 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses that year—someone died of HIV-related causes every minute.

The Trump Administration suspended all new foreign aid funds on 25 January, except for military assistance to Israel and Egypt. Some HIV funding was later restored, but with President Trump’s decision to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), certain programmes have not resumed. As a result, many community-led organizations in low- and middle-income countries have had to reduce services or even close their doors.

According to UNAIDS,

“In Mozambique alone, over 30,000 health personnel were affected. In Nigeria, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) initiation has plummeted from 40,000 to 6,000 people per month. If US-supported HIV treatment and prevention services collapse entirely, UNAIDS estimates that an additional six million new HIV infections and four million additional AIDS-related deaths could occur between 2025 and 2029”.

Meanwhile, punitive laws against same-sex relationships, gender expression, and drug use are on the rise for the first time since 2008, making HIV services inaccessible to many and deepening stigma and discrimination against key populations, especially people who inject drugs.

Despite the debilitating impact on international aid, some countries have managed to maintain or even increase domestic funding for the AIDS response. According to the UNAIDS Global AIDS update, as of December 2024,

“…seven countries—Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—had achieved the 95-95-95 targets: 95% of people living with HIV know their status, 95% of those are on treatment, and 95% of those on treatment are virally suppressed”.

South Africa is funding 77 per cent of its AIDS response, with a planned annual increase of 3.3 per cent in HIV and tuberculosis programmes as part of its health expenditure over the next three years. The report also highlights emerging prevention tools like “long-acting injectable PrEP, including Lenacapavir, which has shown near-complete efficacy in clinical trials—though affordability and access remain key challenges”.

This World AIDS Day is a crucial opportunity to reflect on our domestic efforts against the AIDS epidemic and to reaffirm the conclusion stated in the 2025 Global AIDS Update:

“…the global HIV response cannot rely on domestic resources alone”.

The international community must work together, bridge financing gaps, support countries in closing remaining gaps in HIV prevention and treatment services, and remove legal and social barriers; there is a long way to go to achieve Sustainable Development Goal target 3.3 of ending AIDS by 2030.

This World AIDS Day, join us in calling for the protection of public health and human rights through a renewed approach to international cooperation, holistic and sustainable AIDS response policy development and political leadership.

Edited by Ali Shahrukh Pracha

Image credit: UNAIDS