WHO Commemorates World Aid’s Day under the theme “Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response”.

December 2025: Today, 01st December World Health Organization joins partners and communities to commemorate World AIDS Day 2025, under the theme “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response“, calling for sustained political leadership, international cooperation, and human-rights-centered approaches to end AIDS by 2030.

After decades of progress, the HIV response stands at a crossroads. Life-saving services are being disrupted, and many communities face heightened risks and vulnerabilities. Yet amid these challenges, hope endures in the determination, resilience, and innovation of communities who strive to end AIDS.

As per WHO Official Records in the year 2024 –

• An estimated 40.8 million people were living with HIV globally.
• Approximately 630 000 people died from HIV‑related causes.
• An estimated 1.3 million people acquired HIV.

Prioritise and integrate – The HIV response is shifting, offering a vital opportunity to reset. By:

simplifying and prioritizing access to HIV prevention, testing, treatment; strengthening management of drug resistance and advanced HIV disease; and integrating these services within a primary health care approach that includes strong community-based services. Countries can reach more people in need with holistic services, sustaining gains, and building resilient health systems that serve everyone, everywhere.

Address inequity – Ending AIDS means addressing the inequalities that drive the epidemic. Children and adolescent girls and young women face heightened vulnerabilities, particularly across the Africa region. And key populations including men who have sex with men, trans and gender diverse people, people who use drugs, sex workers and people in prisons in all regions face increased HIV risk. Protecting rights and ensuring access to services for everyone is essential to stopping new infections and achieving health equity.

Scale innovation – The fight against HIV has never been easy, yet resilience and innovation continue to define the response. As global funding falters, advances like long-acting lenacapavir, a six-monthly injection to prevent HIV, remind us that progress continues. With commitment and creativity, we can ensure that lifesaving long acting antiretrovirals for prevention and treatment reach those in most need.

Empower communities – Communities are the driving force of the HIV response. People living with HIV and those most affected, including key populations bring the insight, courage, and innovation needed to overcome today’s challenges. When these communities join forces with health workers, policymakers, and partners, new pathways to success emerge, built on trust, equity and shared purpose.

Sharp and sudden reductions in International Funding this year led to disruptions in HIV prevention, treatment and testing services, with essential community-led programmes, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and harm reduction initiatives for people who inject drugs, being scaled back or shut down entirely in some countries.

“We face significant challenges, with cuts to international funding, and prevention stalling“, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “At the same time, we have significant opportunities, with exciting new tools with the potential to change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic. Expanding access to those tools for people at risk of HIV everywhere must be priority number one for all governments and partners”.

After decades of progress, the HIV response stands at a crossroads. In 2024:

• HIV prevention efforts stagnated, with 1.3 million new infections, disproportionately impacting key and vulnerable populations;

• UNAIDS data reveal that almost half (49%) of new HIV infections occurred among key populations, including sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender women, and people who inject drugs, and their sexual partners;

• While sex workers and transgender women face a 17 fold higher risk of acquiring HIV, men who have sex with men face an 18-fold higher risk, and people who inject drugs, a 34 fold higher risk;

• Underlying drivers include stigma, discrimination, and legal, social and structural barriers these groups face to access HIV care;

• Globally, an estimated 40.8 million people were living with HIV, and 630 000 people died from HIV-related causes.

While the full scale of the impact of foreign aid cuts is still being assessed, access to PrEP is believed to have declined dramatically. The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition estimates that, as of October 2025, 2.5 million people who used PrEP in 2024 lost access to their medications in 2025 due solely to donor funding cuts. Such disruptions could have far-reaching consequences for the global HIV response, jeopardizing efforts to end AIDS by 2030.

“We are entering a new era of powerful innovations in HIV prevention and treatment”, said Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’s Department for HIV, TB, Hepatitis and STIs. “By pairing these advances with decisive action, supporting communities, and removing structural barriers, we can ensure that key and vulnerable populations have full access to life-saving services”.

WHO prequalified LEN for HIV prevention on 06th October 2025, followed by national regulatory approvals that will increase access in South Africa (27th October), Zimbabwe (27th November) and Zambia (04th November).

WHO’s Collaborative Registration Procedure (CRP) supported these approvals. WHO is also working closely with partners such as CIFF, the Gates Foundation, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and Unitaid to enable affordable access to LEN in countries? Ensuring that long-acting HIV medicines for prevention and treatment reach priority populations must be a global priority.

WHO emphasises that ending the AIDS epidemic depends on a fully integrated, evidence-based and rights-driven approach under the umbrella of primary healthcare. WHO will continue working with partners and leaders to put those most affected at the centre of the HIV response. Despite funding setbacks, the resilience and leadership of communities offer a clear path forward. By strengthening health systems, increasing domestic investment, and protecting human rights, countries can safeguard gains and ensure no one is left behind.

Team Maverick.