This progress has been bolstered by service delivery innovations and collaborations, accelerated in part by the response to COVID-19. Among them are preventing treatment interruptions, expanding testing options such as self-testing, and providing more choices in HIV prevention modalities, tools and delivery systems.

There is now a clear path to ending the pandemic as a threat to public health and individual well-being, the latest UNAIDS report points out. And countries that put people and communities first in their policies and programmes are leading the way.

Despite progress, however, 9.2 million people living with HIV are not accessing life-saving treatment and 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2022 – that is one life every minute. HIV is still most prevalent in central, eastern, western and southern Africa – home to 65% of all people living with HIV, with women and girls disproportionately affected. There were also sharp increases in acquisitions in other areas in 2022: for example, almost a quarter were in Asia and the Pacific,

As UNAIDS says, this points to a lack of HIV prevention services for marginalized and key populations and the barriers posed by punitive laws and social discrimination.

There is still a need for more innovative approaches to prevent new HIV acquisitions, especially among key populations: gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, prisoners and other incarcerated people, sex workers and their clients, and trans people.

The challenges and obstacles that lie in the path of reaching our targets are many. Among them are stigma and discrimination, abiding and rising criminalization, and structural inequalities between populations and countries. Sustained funding is crucial to continue making progress in HIV prevention, treatment and care, but funding for HIV declined in 2022 to levels last seen in 2013, according to UNAIDS, and this is partly due to resources being redirected to crises like COVID-19.

There is an urgent need to work together to overcome these barriers and harness science and innovation to build on our progress.