UNAIDS says millions of people around the world have lost access to treatment and preventive care due to lack of funding.
Disruptions to global funding for treatment and prevention programs are leaving millions of people without access to care, the United Nations agency against AIDS has announced.
In a report released Tuesday, UNAIDS said the global response to the disease “immediately went into crisis mode” after President Donald Trump took office in January and the U.S. withdrew funding.
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On January 25, the Trump administration suspended all new foreign aid funds except for military aid to Israel and Egypt.
Some HIV funding was restored in the second half of this year, but some programs have not been restarted following President Trump’s decision to dismantle the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
UNAIDS said the cuts were exacerbated by “intensifying economic and fiscal pressures on many low- and middle-income countries.”
He added that the lack of funding is having a “serious and lasting impact” on the lives of people around the world.
“Service disruptions are killing people with HIV, denying millions of people at high risk of contracting the disease access to the most effective prevention methods, depriving more than 2 million adolescent girls and young women from essential health services, and decimating community-led organizations, many of which are forced to close,” the report said.
Funding cuts have reduced the number of people using the HIV prevention drug known as PrEP by 64% in Burundi, 38% in Uganda and 21% in Vietnam. Condom distribution in Nigeria has decreased by 55 percent.
“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we have worked so hard to achieve,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima.
“Behind every data point in this report are people: babies who were not able to get an HIV test, young women who were not able to receive prevention support, communities who were suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them.”
UNAIDS said that despite the financial crisis, some positive trends are emerging, including strengthening health programs and national and regional efforts to treat the disease.
“Communities are coming together to support each other and the fight against AIDS. The most affected countries are also some of the most indebted, limiting their ability to invest in HIV, but governments are taking swift action to increase domestic funding wherever possible,” the report said.
“As a result, the number of people receiving HIV treatment has maintained or even increased in some countries.”
The report recommends a moratorium on payments until 2030 to restructure low-income countries’ international debt and free up more resources for HIV care and prevention.
It also called for “stimulating innovation with prizes, not patents, and treating health innovation as a global public good during a pandemic.”
In addition to declining funding, the report highlighted another challenge in the fight against AIDS: the “growing human rights crisis.”
“In 2025, for the first time since UNAIDS began monitoring punitive laws in 2008, the number of countries criminalizing same-sex sexual activity and gender expression increased,” the report said.
“Globally, anti-gender and anti-rights movements are growing in influence and geographic reach, putting at risk the gains made on the rights of women and girls, people living with HIV, and LGBTIQ+ people.”
