For more than four decades, the global AIDS response has been powered by grief, rage, courage and determination. Families buried loved ones long before their time. Communities confronted discrimination and built networks of care when the silence was deafening. Scientific breakthroughs and community-driven innovation transformed HIV from a near-certain death sentence into a chronic, manageable condition. The result is one of the greatest public health achievements of the past half century. That success is now under threat.Then came the shock.In 2025, abrupt funding cuts disrupted the systems that made this progress possible, especially in high-burden countries reliant on sustained investment in HIV programmes across Africa and parts of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.Prevention efforts stalled. Clinics faced stockouts of essential medicines. Health workers were laid off. Systems built over decades began to unravel in months.At the United Nations High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, leaders warned the world faces a “perilous moment”, with the global HIV response losing ground. Advertisement Behind the headlines and rhetoric are widening inequalities. In West and Central Africa, treatment coverage for pregnant women is too low. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia, one of the few regions where infections are rising, any disruption risks accelerating the epidemic further. In Latin America and the Caribbean, persistent inequalities continue to leave margina …
