By Patience Gondo
As the world celebrates World AIDS Day on December 1 , UNAIDS is issuing a stark warning, recent cuts in international aid have inflicted , the biggest setback in decades on the global effort to end AIDS pandemic.
The warning comes as international funding cuts have disrupted prevention, testing and treatment programmes in the world’s most vulnerable countries threatening to reverse years of progress. 
In its 2025 report titled “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response,” UNAIDS documents how reductions in foreign aid have undermined life-saving HIV services around the world.
The report estimates that as of 2024, roughly 40.8 million people were living with HIV globally, and there were 1.3 million new infections that year. 
Yet, because of the sudden funding shortfall, many prevention programmes have been curtailed or suspended entirely particularly in low and middle income countries. 
The situation worsened when the largest donor, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), temporarily froze all foreign assistance in early 2025 a move that immediately disrupted the delivery of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and prevention services, including HIV testing and community-led outreach. 
As a result, clinics shut down, and millions lost access to HIV treatment or prevention tools such as condoms and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), severely affecting vulnerable populations. 
In a press conference, Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said the crisis has laid bare “the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve.”
She said that AIDS is not yet over ending AIDS is within reach, but only if the global community acts swiftly to restore support, renew cooperation and mobilize resources. 
For decades, AIDS response efforts had yielded remarkable results. Since 2010, new HIV infections worldwide had fallen by around 40 % and AIDS-related deaths by more than half. 
By late 2024, it was estimated that 77 % of people living with HIV were receiving ART a dramatic increase compared with previous years.  Still, large gaps remained many people did not know their status, and millions lacked access to treatment. 
Now, with funding plunged and services disrupted, those gains are at risk. In many affected countries, community-led organizations that provided prevention, education and care have closed.
Parents and infants have missed routine HIV screening ,young women and marginalized communities have lost access to critical prevention and support services. 
UNAIDS estimates that to stay on track to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, the global community must mobilize roughly US$21.9 billion annually for HIV programming in low- and middle-income countries.  Without swift and renewed commitment, the collapse of programmes could fuel a resurgence of infections and deaths, imperiling global health goals. 
As World AIDS Day approaches ,the agency is urging governments, civil society and private-sector partners to commit to sustainable financing, strengthen domestic ownership of HIV responses, and support community-based services, especially for the most vulnerable.
Byanyima’s message is urgent the world is at a crossroad the decision to rebuild or regress will determine whether decades of hard-fought progress will endure. 
In Zimbabwe the national World Aids Day celebrations are being held at Umzingwane just outside Bulawayo along the road to Beitbridge.