AIDS Deaths Are Down 57% Since 2010. International Funding Just Fell by the Largest Amount in Almost Two Decades.

Two numbers, one report, published this morning in Rio de Janeiro on the opening day of the International AIDS Conference.

The first. AIDS-related deaths in 2025 were 57 percent lower than in 2010 [1]. In absolute terms, 1.3 million a year became 570,000. New HIV infections fell 42 percent over the same period, from 2.1 million to 1.2 million, and sub-Saharan Africa did better than the world average at 59 percent [1]. Both figures are the lowest in more than thirty years.

The machinery behind that is worth naming, because it is not abstract. 32.1 million people were on treatment as of December 2025. Antiretroviral coverage stands at 78 percent; in 2010 it was 24 percent. Paediatric infections are down 69 percent, to 93,000, and programmes to prevent transmission from mother to child have averted roughly 4.8 million infections in children since 2000 [1].

Seven countries - Benin, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Nepal - have cut new infections by at least 78 percent since 2010. Twenty-seven more are past 60 percent [1].

The second number, from the same document. International financing for HIV in low- and middle-income countries fell by US$1.6 billion in 2025, a drop of 18 percent - which the report calls the largest decline in almost two decades [1].

Total resources fell to US$17.6 billion. The requirement by 2030 is US$21.9 billion a year. The gap is US$4.3 billion [1].

What that looks like on the ground is also in the report. Pre-exposure prophylaxis fell more than 50 percent in Cameroon, Nigeria and Zambia. A 2026 study of 79 community-led organisations across 47 countries found community PrEP delivery down 50 percent, services for gay men down 85 percent, for sex workers down 82 percent, and for survivors of gender-based violence down 72 percent [1].

Twenty-one countries now have rising new infections. Regionally: the Middle East and North Africa up 78 percent, Latin America 25 percent, eastern Europe and central Asia 17 percent [1].

Winnie Byanyima, who runs UNAIDS, put the tension in one line: 'Scientific breakthroughs are giving us tools that previous generations could only dream of. However, innovation without access is not innovation, it is injustice' [2].

She also said something that reads less like advocacy than like a forecast: 'The era of relying on international aid is over. Countries cannot wait and they cannot go backwards' [2].

The report's own projection, if the 2026 Political Declaration targets are met in full: 3.2 million infections and 1.3 million deaths averted by 2030 [1].