The global HIV response risks unravelling into a new epidemic as donor-country aid cuts erode testing and treatment capacity, a senior UNAIDS official has warned. Christine Stegling, director of management and partnerships at the agency, told a London screening of a documentary on anti-LGBTQ+ violence in Nigeria that people are losing access to services and, critically, to testing. “We’re getting into a new era where people are not aware of their HIV status, won’t go for help, or will come late,” she said. UN Secretary-General António Guterres last month reported that 9.2 million people could not access HIV treatment at the end of 2024, AIDS-related deaths stood at 630,000—double the 2025 target—and 1.3 million new infections were recorded, 3.5 times the target figure.

Viewed from Accra, the warning coincides with a domestic controversy over HIV testing in a security-services recruitment exercise. Ghana’s Interior Minister disclosed that roughly 1,300 of 100,000 applicants recorded reactive HIV results during mandatory screening, prompting public concern that candidates were being disqualified on the basis of their status. The Ghana AIDS Commission moved to clarify that a single reactive test does not constitute a confirmed diagnosis under the national three-test serial algorithm, and that the 1.3 per cent figure is broadly consistent with the country’s estimated adult prevalence of 1.49 per cent. The Commission also reminded employers that Section 32 of the AIDS Commission Act, 2016 prohibits discrimination on HIV grounds except where a specific medical condition is demonstrably required for the role, and that the “U=U” principle—undetectable equals untransmittable—has rendered many old recruitment restrictions obsolete.

In Lagos, health authorities confronted a parallel data misinterpretation after media reports claimed the state recorded 10,430 new HIV infections in 2025. Dr Folakemi Animashaun, CEO of the Lagos State AIDS Control Agency, said the figure represents newly diagnosed cases, not fresh infections, many of which may have been acquired years earlier. Lagos conducted 504,800 tests in 2025 with a positivity rate of 2.4 per cent; in the first quarter of 2026, the rate fell to 0.9 per cent from 179,229 tests. The state has 147,904 people on antiretroviral treatment, 97 per cent of whom have achieved viral suppression. In a policy shift designed to reduce dependence on donor funding, Lagos announced it has begun direct procurement of ARVs, becoming the first sub-national government in Nigeria to do so, with the first batch expected by end-August 2026.

Community-level prevention efforts continue elsewhere. In Indonesia’s Tana Toraja regency, the head of the national family-welfare movement urged residents to seek regular testing and avoid risky behaviours, noting that HIV often remains invisible until advanced stages. The Ghana AIDS Commission, meanwhile, stressed that poorly framed public discussion of HIV data can reinforce stigma and deter testing, undermining the country’s goal of ending AIDS as a public-health threat by 2030. The next factual milestone to watch is the arrival of Lagos’s independently procured antiretrovirals, which will test the viability of sub-national commodity security in an era of retreating international health financing.