Global AIDS Update 2024

"By the end of 2024, the annual number of people newly acquiring HIV was at its lowest since the mid-1980s, and the annual number of people dying of AIDSrelated causes had been reduced to levels last seen in the early 1990s. At least seven countries had achieved the 95–95–95 targets in 2024, and 18 countries and territories had eliminated the vertical transmission of HIV. Another 10 countries without available data for 2024 achieved 90% treatment coverage in 2022 or 2023. Average life expectancy had rebounded in the countries hit hardest by HIV.

"The declines in numbers of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths were not yet sufficient to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030—but the means and the momentum for doing so existed. Examples of country successes were multiplying, and national governments were assuming greater responsibility for their HIV responses. New scientific breakthroughs continued to be made, including long-acting injectable antiretroviral medicines that are almost 100% effective in preventing HIV infections but require precise targeting and demand-generation among the people at highest risk of HIV acquisition to be cost-effective (2).

"That was the situation at the end of 2024. Since then, HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries have been rocked by sudden, major financial disruptions that threaten to reverse decades of hard-won progress against HIV. Wars and conflict, widening economic inequalities, geopolitical shifts and climate change shocks—the likes of which are unprecedented in the global HIV response—are stoking instability and straining multilateral cooperation. Urgent action and revived solidarity are needed to sustain the gains made and prevent a resurgence of HIV."