At the High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, held every five years since 2001, speakers urged governments to recommit to ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and to adopt a new Political Declaration to guide the global response over the next five years.
United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed reflected on the extraordinary progress made over decades of global cooperation.
“In the 45 years since the first case of AIDS was reported, the world has shown uncommon determination and solidarity,” he said, speaking on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres.
That effort helped reduce AIDS-related deaths by 70 percent from 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. At the end of 2024, 9.2 million people still do not have access to HIV treatment, while 1.3 million people contracted HIV and 630,000 died from AIDS-related causes.
“Funding cuts are directly impacting prevention efforts and community systems that are so essential to the response,” he said.
The Deputy Secretary-General called for renewed measures in five priority areas: expanding access to prevention and treatment, strengthening community leadership, protecting human rights, increasing funding and reviving international cooperation.
“Human rights and equality must continue to guide our response,” he said, warning that Stigma, discrimination and the reduction of civic space continue to put lives at risk..
The virus continues 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 finance fell by 23 percent in 2025, the steepest drop ever recorded,” he said.
It warned that HIV programs in low-income, high-burden countries had been particularly affected.
“Our most recent UNAIDS data, released last week, shows fragility,” he said. “HIV testing has decreased by 22 percent in high-burden settings, meaning people do not know their status and the virus continues to spread..”
Response at risk
He added that in some places funding for condoms had been cut by more than 90 percent.
“Prevention is being dismantled at the very time we should be scaling innovations like new long-acting medications.”
Despite the setbacks, Ms. Byanyima insisted that ending AIDS is still possible.
“Research could still give us a cure. Ending AIDS is possible; However, we find ourselves in a dangerous moment,“he said. “Multilateralism is at its weakest point in a generation, while threats are about to reverse all our achievements.”
Listen to our interview with Mandeep Dhaliwal of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), who highlights why the world is at a critical point for the HIV response.
Communities in the center
Representing civil society, Karen Dunaway, Global Program Officer of the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW), urged delegates to remember that policies debated in conference rooms shape real lives.
“The future of this response will depend on the decisions we make in this room,” he said.
It called for protecting bodily autonomy, promoting gender equality, and eliminating laws and policies that exclude, criminalize, and stigmatize key populations.
Unfinished fight
Reflecting on decades of advocacy, he reminded participants that progress does not happen automatically.
“Every achievement had to be fought for. Every barrier that was removed needed someone to question it. Every commitment is a choice,” he said.
“That’s why this moment is important. The people in this room have the power to shape the response to HIV that can change this world for the better.”
The two-day meeting is expected to conclude with the adoption of a new Political Declaration intended to serve as the world’s main accountability framework for national HIV commitments until 2030.
