Decades of progress against HIV are under threat as funding cuts weaken prevention and treatment. The tools to save lives exist – what is missing is sustained political will.

For more than four decades, the global AIDS response has been powered by grief, rage, courage and determination. Families buried loved ones long before their time. Communities confronted discrimination and built networks of care when the silence was deafening. Scientific breakthroughs and community-driven innovation transformed HIV from a near-certain death sentence into a chronic, manageable condition. The result is one of the greatest public health achievements of the past half century. That success is now under threat.

Over the past decade, AIDS-related deaths among children fell by almost 70 per cent, and the number of adolescent girls acquiring HIV halved. Twenty-two countries, from Brazil to Bahamas, Cuba to Thailand, have eliminated vertical transmission of HIV (from mothers to newborns) or are on the path to doing so. Last year, the Maldives became the first country in the world to eliminate HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B as public health threats – a milestone that once seemed unimaginable.

In 2025, abrupt funding cuts disrupted the systems that made this progress possible, especially in high-burden countries reliant on sustained investment in HIV programs across Africa and parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

Prevention efforts stalled. Clinics faced stockouts of essential........

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