By Emma Farge
GENEVA, July 27 (Reuters) - The world risks a resurgence of the HIV epidemic after global funding fell by nearly a fifth last year, the U.N. body fighting AIDS said on Monday.
Washington previously accounted for 75% of international HIV funding before President Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025. That month he ordered a temporary halt to all HIV-related funding before restoring life-saving HIV work days later, although most prevention efforts were curtailed.
“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.”
Funding fell by 18% to $7.3 billion in 2025, which was the lowest level in nearly two decades, the report said. That risks reversing progress that has driven down new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths to their lowest level in more than 30 years, it said.
“The current fragility of the HIV response puts these gains at risk unless global solidarity is restored and inequalities are addressed.”
The report also repeated that the global goal to end AIDS by 2030 was off track, saying that reduced funding as well as other crises like Ebola were hampering efforts. Some 1.2 million people caught HIV last year.
The impact of foreign funding cuts for HIV was partially offset, however, by increases in domestic spending. That meant an overall decline of 6% in total HIV resources last year, the UNAIDS report said.
But not all governments were able to step in. Some of the biggest declines in spending on prevention programmes were in sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for about half of new global infections.
National data for Cameroon, Nigeria and Zambia showed more than a 50% decline in the number of people receiving pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.
“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.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
