UNAIDS: HIV infections and deaths at lowest levels in over thirty years, international funding down 18%
The special report presented at the Rio de Janeiro conference recorded 1.2 million new infections and 570,000 deaths in 2025. In the same year, international funding fell from $8.8 to $7.3 billion, the lowest level in almost twenty years.
In 2025, 1.2 million new HIV infections and 570,000 AIDS-related deaths were recorded: the lowest levels in over thirty years. Since 2010, new infections have fallen by 42% and related deaths by 57%. The clearest data concerns children: pediatric infections have dropped by 69% compared to 2010, from 300,000 to 93,000. The figures come from the UNAIDS special report released on 27 July 2026 on the occasion of the 26th International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro, and are corroborated by data published by the agency and by independent analysis from HIV i-Base.
The population
In 2025, 41 million people were living with HIV and 32.1 million had access to antiretroviral therapy. This leaves around 9 million people not in treatment, and nearly half of HIV-positive children lacked access to antiretrovirals. This is the gap that explains why a downward epidemiological curve does not equate to an epidemic under control: treatment coverage is increasing, but the uncovered portion remains concentrated among the most vulnerable groups.
The picture is not uniform. In 2025, new infections increased in three regions and in 21 countries: the global average decline of 42% since 2010 conceals divergent trajectories, and the available sources do not specify which regions and countries are recording the increase.
Funding
| Item | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| International HIV funding | $8.8 billion | $7.3 billion |
The contraction is 18% in one year and brings international spending to its lowest level in nearly two decades. The report juxtaposes this figure with the epidemiological results: the improvement measured in 2025 occurred while external resources were declining, and the sustainability of national programs depends to varying degrees on these transfers according to the country’s income level.
The limits of the figures
The figures reported here are global aggregates released by the agency: the available sources do not detail the calculation methodology or the uncertainty intervals associated with the estimates, and do not allow for the reconstruction of individual countries’ contributions to the totals. For this same reason, comparisons with previous years only hold within the same data publication. The report is also a programmatic document of a United Nations agency, presented on the occasion of an international conference: it records results and indicates a funding need, and should be read taking both functions into account.
UNAIDS describes new infections and AIDS-related deaths as being at their lowest levels in over thirty years: this is the agency’s summary of its own data, reported here as such.
The next verifiable element is accounting in nature before it is health-related: if the contraction in international funding continues into 2026, the effect will be measured in the number of people on antiretroviral therapy, currently 32.1 million out of 41 million people living with the virus.
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