At the high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS, held every five years since 2001, speakers called on governments to recommit to ending AIDS as a threat to public health by 2030 and to adopt a new political declaration to guide the global response over the next five years.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed reflected on the extraordinary progress achieved through decades of global cooperation.
“In the 45 years since the first case of AIDS was reported, the world has shown extraordinary determination and solidarity,” she said on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres.
This effort helped reduce AIDS-related deaths by 70 percent since their peak in 2004 and brought life-saving antiretroviral treatment to more than 32 million people worldwide.
Progress under pressure
But Ms Mohammed warned that progress remains uneven and fragile. By the end of 2024, 9.2 million people still lacked access to HIV treatment, while 1.3 million people contracted HIV and 630,000 died of AIDS-related causes.
“Funding cuts directly impact prevention efforts and the community systems that are so critical to the response,” she said.
The Deputy Secretary-General called for renewed efforts across five priority areas: expanding access to prevention and treatment, strengthening community leadership, protecting human rights, increasing funding and revitalizing international cooperation.
“Human rights and equality must continue to guide our response,” she said, warning that stigmatization, discrimination and the curtailment of civil space continue to put lives at risk.
Viruses continue to spread
Following opening remarks, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima provided an assessment of the current state of the HIV response.
“According to the OECD, development financing will fall by 23 percent by 2025, the sharpest drop ever,” she said.
She warned that HIV programs in high-burden, low-income countries had been particularly hard hit.
“Our latest UNAIDS data, released last week, showed fragility,” she said. “HIV testing has fallen by 22 percent in high-traffic settings, meaning people don’t know their status and the virus continues to spread.”
Reaction at risk
She added that funding for condoms had been cut by more than 90 percent in some places.
“Prevention is being phased out at the very moment when we should be scaling innovations like new long-acting medications.”
Despite the setbacks, Ms. Byanyima that it is still possible to end AIDS.
“Research may yet give us a cure. It is possible to end AIDS; yet we meet in a perilous moment,” she said. “Multilateralism is at its weakest in a generation, while threats are poised to reverse all our gains.”
Listen to our interview with Mandeep Dhaliwal from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), who highlights why the world is at a critical juncture for the HIV response.
Communities at the center
Representing civil society, Karen Dunaway, Global Program Officer at the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), urged delegates to remember that policies discussed in conference rooms shape real life.
“The future of this response will depend on the choices we make in this space,” she said.
She called for protecting bodily autonomy, promoting gender equality and removing laws and policies that exclude, criminalize and stigmatize key populations.
Unfinished battle
Reflecting on decades of advocacy, she reminded attendees that progress does not happen automatically.
“Every gain had to be fought for. Every barrier removed needed someone to question it. Every commitment is a choice,” she said.
“That’s why this moment is important. The people in this room have the power to shape the HIV response that can change this world for the better.”
The two-day meeting is expected to conclude with the adoption of a new political declaration to serve as the world’s primary accountability framework for national HIV commitments through 2030.
