This story first appeared in the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2025 report.

Marouane Abouzid grew up in Casablanca, Morocco, where many boys act like bullies and sex is taboo. That changed when he joined the project Sport Is Your Protection, where he gained knowledge about gender equality and health. “The training on HIV awareness led by UNAIDS and Tibu Africa was a transformative experience in the sense that I saw how sports can be an effective way to get a message out,” the 25-year-old says. “It also gave me essential skills like communicating clearly and active listening.” 

He enjoyed the project so much that he trained to lead sports activities and participate in other sessions. “I talk openly about what I have learned. I encourage my friends to get tested for HIV and encourage people to respect others,” he says, excited about becoming a role model for his peers.

Marouane describes the activities as a safe space to discuss all sorts of issues that young people face in Morocco, such as poverty, unemployment and a patriarchal system.

Marouane is not alone. Assia Ezzahraoui, a participant in the Tibu Africa sports vocational school programme, joined the weeklong sexual education awareness meeting. “The informative sessions gave me new insights into symptoms, prevention methods and available treatments,” she says. Assia feels more secure about how to protect herself and her friends.

Tibu Africa was founded in 2011 and aims to bring the programme across different cities in Morocco. UNAIDS joined with Tibu Africa in 2024. “This first partnership with UNAIDS Morocco mobilized young people around issues to transcend barriers and create opportunities for dialogue and awareness,” says Mohamed Amine Zariat, President of Tibu Africa. “We hope this first step will serve as a springboard for future, even more ambitious initiatives.”

An estimated 24 000 [21 000–26 000] people are living with HIV in Morocco, and nearly 40% of these are women. Although the prevalence of HIV is relatively low in Morocco, vulnerable populations such as sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men and people who inject drugs are particularly at risk. Moroccan youth represent more than 30% of the total population, but a quarter of people aged 15–24 years have no job and lack education and training—young women are particularly hard hit.

Houssine El Rhilani, UNAIDS Country Director in Morocco, is aware of this. He believes the collaboration with Tibu Africa combining sport, education and awareness-raising can empower young people. “We were able to reach young people not only with information, but also through experience, providing them with concrete tools to become prevention ambassadors in their own communities,” he says. “We cannot end AIDS without prioritizing future generations.”

This story first appeared in the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2025 report.

In seven countries in western and central Africa surveyed in 2023, more than 12% of people living with HIV aged 18–24 years reported avoiding health centres for care because of their HIV status. 

Whether it is a refusal of care, humiliating comments or disclosure of their status, many people described feeling alienated. Last year, with funds from Expertise France and the help of UNAIDS and partners, a pilot was launched to raise awareness of stigma in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo.

Training in the Looking In, Looking Out (LILO)* approach raised awareness among 150 health professionals in Senegal and 97 in Togo about sexual diversity, gender-based violence and respect for human rights. In Kara, northern Togo, a visual digital tool (named “image boxes”) has been designed with communities to raise awareness of health and HIV.

When individuals and communities know their rights, they are empowered to take control of their own health and to hold service providers accountable. This is one of the key messages of this tool used by the Network of People Living with HIV (RAS+ Togo). A total of 300 young people attended educational health sessions in the Central African Republic. In Benin and the Central African Republic, the project focused on legal reform, with the involvement of parliamentarians, including members of the women’s caucus in both countries. Legal texts, a draft decree and a decree have been drafted in the Central African Republic. In Benin, the work also focused on advocacy for the adoption of the new HIV bill.

“We must make the link between HIV and gender-based violence. The law must protect women in all spheres, especially including health,” said Huguette Bokpe Gnacadja, President of the National Institute for Women in Benin.

The year-long partnership has enabled action to be taken at the individual level (rights literacy), organizational level (paralegals in community organizations, training for community actors), interorganizational level and national level (legal reform).

In the next year, UNAIDS wants to further improve access to inclusive human rights-based HIV services for people from key populations, adolescents, girls and young women in the region.

“The fight against HIV will not be won in laboratories, but in the power relations between caregivers and those receiving care, between the state and its citizens,” said Fatou Sy, a UNAIDS focal point in the region who oversaw the projects in the six countries. “We have more work to do.”

*Looking In, Looking Out (LILO) refers to a process of internal and external reflection aimed at improving understanding of key populations and their access to health services. The approach seeks to strengthen the knowledge of intermediaries in the response to stigma surrounding key populations, with a view to encouraging their involvement in creating a supportive environment.

This story first appeared in the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2025 report.

Kalesi Volatabu, founder of DrugFree World Fiji, breaks the ice at drug awareness sessions by sharing her shocking story. 

When she was 13, her parents sent her to relatives in Sydney for what she thought was a vacation. In fact, they expected her to stay there, work and send money back to them in Fiji. She ended up on her own with no passport, no schooling and no care. She spent three years on the streets. Boyfriends abused her. She was raped twice. She attempted suicide three times. By the age of 17, she was a mother. 

“Marijuana did nothing for me,” she says. “My drug of choice was meth. I needed to go to the hardest drug to numb the pain I was going through ... to fill the void. When I share this in Fiji today in villages, schools and churches, it gives people the power to say, ‘This is what happened to me.’ It is a healing journey.” 

Kalesi leads the one community organization exclusively committed to addressing the drug use fuelling Fiji’s ballooning HIV epidemic. 

Since 2014, number of new HIV infections in Fiji has risen by an alarming 10-fold. UNAIDS estimates that in 2014, there were fewer than 500 people living with HIV in Fiji. Just 10 years later, that number was 5900 [4500–8900]. In 2024, only 36% [27–54%] of people living with HIV in Fiji were aware of their HIV status, and only 24% [18–36%] were receiving treatment.

Preliminary data for 2024 from the Ministry of Health show that among people newly diagnosed with HIV who are currently receiving antiretroviral therapy, half contracted HIV through sharing needles. 

Responding to the sharp increase in new diagnoses, the Government of Fiji declared an HIV outbreak in January 2025. The HIV Outbreak Response Plan and the previously announced Counter Narcotics and HIV Surge strategies call for the introduction of harm reduction programmes for people who inject drugs. Currently there are none. 

Although there is agreement in principle with the introduction of needle–syringe programmes, moving towards implementation has been more challenging. “We still need to raise awareness,” says Kalesi. “It is not just about giving out needles. It is about education. But there are so many myths and misconceptions. We have to educate the leaders first. When the indigenous chiefs call, people will follow. Then there are the churches. Last but not least, the Government.”

Medical Services in the Pacific (MSP) Fiji is prepared to implement a needle–syringe programme. The non-profit-making organization provides a broad range of sexual and reproductive health services. It is already supporting the scale-up of much needed HIV prevention, testing and linkages to care. Beyond its clinics in Labasa, Lautoka and Suva, it deploys an outreach team of clinicians and counsellors to the field. A mobile clinic goes to hotspot areas to provide a package of HIV and noncommunicable disease services in areas with high levels of injecting drug use. 

“Since we started providing point-of-care (rapid) screening last year, the numbers have continued to escalate,” says MSP Fiji Country Director, Railala Nakabea. “It is not only in the cities and towns. We are also seeing positive cases in rural communities. Most of the cases we detect are among people who inject drugs.” 

MSP Fiji Medical Officer, Kesa Tuidraki, reiterates the importance of harm reduction alongside longer term and more widely accepted plans for the construction of a drug rehabilitation facility. “It is not only HIV,” she says. “We also have increasing hepatitis C infection, which is even more easily spread through sharing injecting equipment. We need to have harm reduction programmes in place as soon as possible. Rehabilitation does not address the immediate public health emergency.” She acknowledges the importance of partnering with an organization of people with lived experience to more effectively serve the community of people who use drugs. 

For Kalesi Volatabu, it is critical that stakeholders work together to design a tailored approach. “We definitely need harm minimization strategies, but we have to contextualize the programmes. What would work in the western context will not work in Fiji. You need to speak the language of your audience. It must be driven by the people and owned by the people.”

This story was first published in the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2025 report.

The day for Safargul begins at 04:00 and rarely ends before midnight. She juggles the demands of raising four children, tending a vegetable garden and managing the household in the small city of Kulyab in Tajikistan. Twice a week, she works at the local AIDS centre as a peer consultant. She supports women newly diagnosed with HIV, helping them understand the importance of starting treatment and not giving up hope. 

Safargul has been living with HIV since 2006. No one in her community knows her HIV-positive status. “It would mean the end of normal life,” she says. “People would exclude me from gatherings, from everyday conversations.” 

Her husband and eldest son were migrant workers abroad—just like the husbands of many of the women she now supports. “I see young women infected by their husbands and refusing treatment because they fear someone in the family might find out. They do not know enough, and they have no power to protect themselves,” she says. 

Safargul is worried that most of these women are economically dependent on their husbands and their families. In Tajikistan, one of the poorest countries in central Asia, nearly 30% of gross domestic product comes from remittances, with many men migrating to Kazakhstan or the Russian Federation for work. According to the National AIDS Center, in 2015 one in eight new HIV cases was linked to male labour migration, but that figure rose to one in three by 2023. As a result, the risk of HIV infection among women—especially in rural communities—has crept up. 

Takhmina Haidarova knows this risk firsthand. She was raised in a traditional household and then married a man who worked abroad and rarely came home. After the loss of their child, she hoped another pregnancy would ease the pain— but during a routine check-up, she learned she was living with HIV. 

“I did not even know HIV existed in Tajikistan,” she recalls. Her husband rejected her, and his family blamed her after he died of an AIDS-related illness. “I had no knowledge, no support, and no one to turn to.” 

Takhmina now leads the Tajikistan Network of Women Living with HIV. With support from UNAIDS, and together with a local team of researchers, the Network conducted a time-use survey in 2024, which revealed the systemic inequalities facing women living with HIV. Nearly 80% are homemakers and spend more than eight hours a day on unpaid labour. Most need permission from their husbands to visit a health facility. For many women, autonomy over health decisions comes only after divorce or widowhood. Tragically, 97% of women living with HIV in Tajikistan hide their HIV-positive status, even from family members. 

“My mother-in-law knows her son infected me,” one woman says, “but still she will not accept a cup of tea from me.” 

For Zarina from Tursunzade, change began with business skills training and a small grant from UNAIDS and UN Women. After leaving an abusive marriage and becoming a single mother, she built a sewing business that now employs women living with HIV. She also teaches women affected by HIV—including those in remote rural areas—how to start their own small sewing businesses. 

“Thanks to this support, I became independent—and I can help others who were abandoned like I was,” she says. 

UNAIDS Country Director in Tajikistan, Aziza Hamidova, refers to the recent gender assessment study led by UNAIDS, which concluded that restrictive gender norms, entrenched practices, stigma, discrimination and gender-based violence hinder timely access to health services, including for HIV. “The HIV response must reflect the real lives of women,” she says. “It must support their right to grow, earn and live with dignity.” 

Progress in supporting HIV services for women is fragile. Funding cuts as small as 10–20% could reverse years of gains. More than 60% of the HIV response in Tajikistan is funded by the Global Fund and PEPFAR with the United States Government, and only 37% is funded domestically. UNAIDS and partners are worried that funding cuts may deepen deprivation and perpetuate stigma, leaving women living with HIV to bear the burden of survival and exclusion. “Investing in women’s health, safety and economic power is not just smart—it is urgent,” Aziza says.

This story was first published in the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2025 report.

“We will focus on treatment!” This is the reassurance HIV advocates say they have received from the Government of the Philippines in the aftermath of United States funding cuts to the Philippines HIV response. 

These commitments are critical to scale up treatment access for the 60% of people living with HIV in the Philippines who are not currently receiving antiretroviral therapy. But far more is needed to achieve epidemic control in a country that has seen a six-fold increase in new infections since 2010. 

In 2024, three to four people were infected with HIV every hour in the Philippines. Of particular concern is that almost half of them are young people aged 15–24 years. Programmes to reach young key populations, especially young gay men and other men who have sex with men, are urgently needed. 

“We are seeing a trend where younger and younger people are getting infected,” says Russell Elloso of Network Plus Philippines, the umbrella organization of people living with HIV. “And we are not seeing a plateau—the number of cases is still increasing. That means the current approaches are not working.” 

Through PEPFAR, the United States invested primarily in supporting HIV prevention strategies and community-led work to ensure services reached people most in need. 

One of the programmes that has been cancelled as a consequence of the funding cuts is the EpiC-supported Free to be YOUTH HUB. This innovative think tank developed culturally resonant HIV prevention and treatment support approaches specifically for young people. It ran 12 projects, including an academy for social media influencers, an innovative approach to HIV education, and a peer-led project to re-enrol youth who had stopped HIV treatment. 

“We have a progressive HIV policy in the Philippines and a comprehensive sexual and reproductive health policy, but they are not youth-focused and youth centred,” explains Aaron James Villapando, Co-chair of Free to be YOUTH. “The value of this initiative was having an advisory board focused on promoting a youth-led response. Young people can lead, and we need to be at the frontlines of the HIV response for it to be effective.” 

In the aftermath of the funding freeze, the organization has ramped up efforts to engage the private sector and foundations. A key priority has been to work with local government and local youth councils to secure more decentralized and sustainable funding for HIV programmes in the respective provinces. But activists are finding it particularly difficult to secure support for interventions for young key populations. 

“Our Secretary of Health has assured the public that they will scale their current initiatives with a goal of not being so dependent on international funding. But the reality is that some of the community-led projects that are most needed are not priorities,” Mr Villapando says. 

Stakeholders are lobbying the Department of Health to expand modern prevention methods and community-led service delivery, which were traditionally funded by external donors. These donor investments specifically addressed critical programmatic gaps, including youth programming and increasing access to modern testing and prevention options. 

Despite the Government procuring almost all HIV commodities, including PrEP, challenges remain around funding and systems for community-led responses, and the introduction of novel interventions such as long-acting PrEP, the dapivirine vaginal ring and selftesting. Advocates are lobbying policy-makers to develop and implement a social contracting mechanism so the community can continue to provide services without support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) and PEPFAR.