Aid cuts slash HIV prevention, PrEP access falls 40% worldwide

The global HIV response is losing ground where it matters most: prevention. Across 62 countries, 38% fewer people received PrEP in 2025 than in 2024, a drop from 3.3 million to 2.1 million, while condom funding fell by more than 90% in some places.

UNAIDS said the numbers reflect a sharp break in the prevention pipeline, not a bookkeeping shift. Winnie Byanyima, the agency’s executive director, warned that the world may be entering “perhaps the most serious disruption of HIV services since the HIV response started,” linking funding cuts to renewed attacks on the rights of key populations, especially LGBTQ people. The agency said external funding cuts, human-rights pushback and chronic underinvestment in prevention and community services are combining to reverse years of gains.

The damage is already visible in service delivery. UNAIDS and UN reporting said prevention services were hit hardest after the sudden withdrawal of the single biggest contributor to the global HIV response in early 2025. In November, UN News reported stock-outs of test kits and medicines in Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a 55% drop in condom distribution in Nigeria, and declines in preventive medicines of 31% in Uganda, 21% in Viet Nam and 64% in Burundi. More than 60% of women-led organizations were forced to suspend essential services.

The scale of the setback is especially stark because the epidemic had been moving in the right direction. UNAIDS’ 2025 Global AIDS Update said new HIV infections had fallen 40% and AIDS-related deaths 56% since 2010, but 1.3 million new infections still occurred in 2024. HIV.gov said 40.8 million people were living with HIV globally that year, and 31.6 million were on antiretroviral therapy at the end of 2024. More than half of people living with HIV were in eastern and southern Africa, underscoring how much the world still depends on sustained prevention and treatment finance.

Treatment has held up better than prevention for now. UNAIDS said the number of people on antiretroviral therapy rose to 32.1 million by December 2025, suggesting health systems and community networks have avoided a collapse in care even as prevention thins out. But the agency warned that if prevention efforts are not restored, the result could be an additional 3.3 million new HIV infections between 2025 and 2030, and, if the funding loss becomes permanent, 6 million more infections and 4 million additional AIDS-related deaths by 2029.

The warning landed days before the United Nations General Assembly’s High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York on June 22 and 23, where member states will review 2025 targets and adopt a new Political Declaration. UNAIDS said the meeting could be the last dedicated global political checkpoint on HIV before the 2030 deadline to end AIDS as a public health threat, even as domestic funding rises in some countries and community groups close under the weight of shrinking aid.