Source: United Nations (video statements)
Press Conference by Cesar Nunez, Director of the UNAIDS New York Office, on the launch of the World AIDS Day report, Overcoming Disruption: Transforming the AIDS response.
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“The HIV epidemic is not over, and our previous progress is at risk,” warned César Antonio Núñez, Director of the UNAIDS New York Office, as the UN marked World AIDS Day with an assessment of shrinking global resources.
Briefing reporters at UN headquarters, Núñez said the findings of UNAIDS’ new Global Report: Overcoming disruption, transforming the response, point to mounting threats driven by a sharp decline in international funding. The report, launched last week in Geneva, underscores “the importance of overcoming the current disruption in the financing of the AIDS response.”
He highlighted severe pressures on countries already struggling to maintain services. “OECD projects that external health aid will drop by 30 to 40 per cent in 2025 compared to 2023,” he said, adding that the cuts are “causing immediate and severe disruption to health services in low- and middle-income countries.”
Núñez said the downturn is hitting prevention and community programs first. “The resources, the response and prevention, has kind of flatlined,” he said. Treatment uptake, once rising steadily, “has also been reduced,” with consequences for “prevention programs for young people and key populations.”
These setbacks carry long-term risks, he cautioned. Without urgent corrective action, “that will take us back, 3.9 million people newly acquiring HIV by 2030, in excess of what we would have hoped to be the end of AIDS as a public health threat.”
While some governments have rushed to close gaps, Núñez said the efforts could be insufficient. “Will the funding sources that still remain and the countries filling in the gaps be enough? Not necessarily,” he said.
Countries will have to make sharper strategic choices. “Prioritization will be essential,” Núñez said.
He added, “Evidently, we point to prevention because we need to reduce the number of new infections in order to address…the growing epidemic.”