Five Years To 2030: World Risks Losing Ground In The Fight To End AIDS
By Shobha Shukla
With just five years left to meet the global commitment to end AIDS by 2030, world leaders are being warned that progress is dangerously off track, and that hard-won gains in the HIV response could be reversed if urgent action is not taken.
All governments have agreed that ending AIDS means two clear goals: protecting all HIV-negative people from new infections, and ensuring that everyone living with HIV achieves an undetectable viral load.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), this means people with HIV can live long, healthy lives and pose zero risk of transmitting the virus, a principle known globally as Undetectable Equals Untransmittable (U=U).
Yet, despite scientific breakthroughs and proven prevention tools, the reality remains stark. UNAIDS estimates that in 2024, 40.8 million people were living with HIV worldwide, but only 31.6 million were on life-saving antiretroviral therapy.
That treatment gap continues to fuel new infections and preventable deaths.
In the same year, 1.3 million people were newly infected with HIV, while 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, figures experts insist should no longer be acceptable given existing medical solutions.
United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, has cautioned that financial pressures on governments, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, threaten the global AIDS response.
Speaking at a UNAIDS meeting, she stressed that ending AIDS is achievable “only if resources match our ambition,” noting that rising debt and debt servicing costs are forcing governments to make painful trade-offs between health, education and other priorities.
The importance of sustained political will and community leadership is underscored by the experience of Humana People to People India, which recently marked over 25 years of HIV and AIDS work.
When the organisation began operations 26 years ago, free HIV treatment was unavailable in India.
Today, following the government’s rollout of free antiretroviral therapy in 2004, over 1.8 million people living with HIV receive treatment nationwide.
Through partnerships with India’s National AIDS Control Organisation and state agencies, Humana has worked extensively with key and vulnerable populations, including sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender communities, people who inject drugs, migrants, homeless women and young people, tackling stigma, discrimination, gender-based violence and barriers to healthcare access.
Health advocates emphasise that stigma and discrimination remain major drivers of HIV and TB risk, particularly for women and marginalised groups.
Violence, criminalisation and social exclusion continue to undermine prevention efforts and deny many the right to care and justice.
As the world prepares for the 26th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026) and the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS later this year, campaigners say the global response is at a crossroads. While progress has been made, it is not enough.
Ending AIDS by 2030, experts insist, is not only a health target, it is a human rights imperative that demands renewed commitment to put people first, protect the most vulnerable, and fully invest in proven solutions.
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