HIV prevention efforts around the world are suffering the “biggest setback in decades” due to funding cuts, a new UNAID report has found.
According to the World Health Organization, global HIV assistance is projected to be 30-40% lower in 2025 compared to 2023. Overcoming confusion and transforming the AIDS response. If the current situation continues and countries are unable to achieve their next 2030 goals, global AIDS strategyThis reduction could result in an additional 3.3 million new HIV infections between 2025 and 2030.
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“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we have worked so hard to achieve,” UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said in a statement. “Behind every data point in this report are people. Babies and children who were left without access to HIV testing and early HIV diagnosis, young women who were cut off from prevention supports, and communities who were suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them. We must overcome this disruption and change our response to AIDS.”
In 2024, there were already 570 new HIV infections occurring every day among young women and girls aged 15 to 24 around the world. Currently, more than 60 percent of women-led organizations around the world have paused their programs. Services for sex workers, people who inject drugs, LGBTQ+ people, especially gay men and transgender people, have also been severely affected.
The Trump administration completely disbanded the U.S. Department of Humanitarian Affairs, USAID, in February, immediately leaving communities around the world without medicines to treat and prevent HIV and other diseases. Senate Republicans did not agree until July to waive $400 million in spending cuts to PEPFAR, the program that fights HIV and AIDS around the world, continuing to freeze a key source of medicines for HIV prevention and treatment in 54 countries.
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The most obvious solution recommended by this report is to reinvest in HIV prevention. “We know what works. We have the science, the tools and proven strategies. What we need now is political courage to invest in communities, prevention, innovation and human rights protections as a path to ending AIDS,” Byanyima said.
“Now is the time for us to choose,” she continued. “We can allow these shocks to undo decades of hard-won gains, or we can unite behind a common vision to end AIDS. Millions of lives depend on the choices we make today.”
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
