By Emma Black
As the world marks World AIDS Day 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on governments and global partners to urgently expand access to newly approved HIV prevention tools, including the twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir (LEN), the organization warns that severe foreign aid cuts have disrupted essential HIV services in many countries, placing millions at risk.
In its latest update, WHO says 2025 has seen both major setbacks and breakthrough advancements in the global HIV response, while funding gaps have weakened prevention, testing, and treatment services, the arrival of lenacapavir a long-acting, highly effective HIV prevention injection offers new hope, especially for people who face difficulties with daily oral PrEP or experience stigma in accessing health services.
The new WHO guidelines released in July 2025 recommend LEN as an additional pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) option, describing it as a transformative tool for countries struggling to curb infections.
According to WHO, sharp reductions in international funding this year have forced many countries to scale back or entirely shut down community-led HIV programs, including PrEP distribution and harm-reduction services for people who inject drugs.
We face significant challenges, with cuts to international funding and prevention stalling, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, at the same time, exciting new tools have the potential to change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic expanding access must be the top priority.
UNAIDS data shows that in 2024, 1.3 million people were newly infected with HIV, 49% of infections occurred among key populations and their partners, sex workers and transgender women faced a 17-fold higher infection risk
Men who have sex with men faced an 18-fold higher risk, people who inject drugs faced a 34-fold higher risk, 40.8 million people were living with HIV globally, 630,000 died from HIV related causes
The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) estimates that 2.5 million people who used PrEP in 2024 lost access in 2025 due to donor funding cuts jeopardizing global targets to end AIDS by 2030.
Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, Director of WHO’s Department of HIV, TB, Hepatitis and STIs, said the world is entering a “new era of powerful innovations. LEN was prequalified by WHO in October 2025, followed by swift national approvals in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia under the WHO Collaborative Registration Procedure.
WHO is working with the Gates Foundation, Unitaid, CIFF, and the Global Fund to make LEN affordable for low- and middle-income countries.
The organization stressed that ending AIDS requires countries to strengthen primary health care systems, invest domestically, and ensure HIV programs are rights-based and community-led.
Despite setbacks, communities have shown extraordinary resilience, WHO said, noting that empowering vulnerable groups must remain central to global efforts.
As the world continues to fight HIV amid shrinking funding and rising needs, WHO is urging governments not to delay. With innovation on the rise and communities pushing forward, the agency says the goal of ending AIDS is still possible but only with urgent, sustained investment now.
Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Wednesday, 3th December 2025 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
