Monday, December 1, 2025, marks the 38th World AIDS Day. This awareness initiative unites people across the globe in the fight against HIV as they show their support for people living with HIV and commemorate those who have died of the virus.
In light of funding cuts this year that threaten decades of progress toward ending HIV and AIDS, this year’s World AIDS Day theme is “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response.”
“In a time of crisis, the world must choose transformation over retreat,” said UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima in a UNAIDS press release. “Together, we can still end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030—if we act with urgency, unity and unwavering commitment.”
Before this year’s large-scale service and funding disruptions, 2024 data showed that nearly 9.2 million people living with HIV worldwide lacked access to lifesaving treatments, according to the United Nations. This contributed to 75,000 AIDS-related deaths among children in 2024.
In addition, most children living with HIV globally are not receiving treatment, and 30% of people living with HIV globally receive no medication, according to research published in Nature Medicine.
What’s more, an estimated 40% of Americans newly diagnosed with HIV are not being targeted for the highly effective HIV prevention medication pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a factor in the transmission of the virus.
UNAIDS urges countries to radically shift HIV programming and funding to expand access to lifesaving care and help eliminate HIV and AIDS.
This World AIDS Day, join the call for sustained political leadership, international cooperation and human-rights-centered approaches to end AIDS by 2030.
You can raise awareness of HIV and AIDS in numerous ways—for example, you can post on social media or even host your own World AIDS Day event. Search your favorite social media channel for community-led events, related articles and awareness campaigns based around World AIDS Day.
Search the POZ Calendar to find events, and for more related articles, click #World AIDS Day. There, you’ll see headlines such as “Exploring HIV and AIDS Through Film,” “World AIDS Day Through The Years” and “HIV Research Has Saved Millions of Lives Globally and Led to Innovative Advances in Multiple Diseases.”
To learn more about the virus and the epidemic, click #AIDS History and also check out the POZ Basics on HIV and AIDS, which includes sections on transmission risks, testing, prevention, treatment and more.
Click here to learn more about 2025 HIV and AIDS awareness days, and click here for a printable poster.
