UNAIDS warns funding cuts could reverse AIDS gains; report highlights new prevention tools

Angeli Atrekar, assistant secretary-general of UNAIDS, told reporters at a United Nations press briefing that the agency’s 2025 Global AIDS Update — titled “AIDS Crisis and the Power to Transform” — shows notable progress through the end of 2024 but warns that recent disruptions to funding put the global HIV response at grave risk.

Atrekar said the report’s data through December 2024 show major gains: new infections have fallen about 40 percent since 2010, AIDS-related deaths have dropped more than 54 percent, and roughly 31.6 million people living with HIV — about 77 percent globally — were on lifesaving treatment by the end of 2024. She said nearly 27 million lives have been saved by the global response and that an estimated 4.4 million children have been protected from acquiring HIV since February (figures in the report). "The end of AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 was indeed in sight," Atrekar said.

The report also models the consequences if international support and prevention services are not maintained. "If the world does not…