EACH year, World AIDS Day arrives with new statistics but an old question: why is HIV/AIDS still a critical problem? Despite decades of interventions, glaring inequalities and complacency remain the primary reasons for the elevated numbers. UNAIDS says 40.8m people are living with HIV globally, 9.2m are not “accessing antiretroviral therapy treatment”, and 1.3m new infections surfaced in 2024 — the year when HIV-related causes claimed 630,000 lives. Pakistan is not safe. With the second fastest rate of HIV increase in the Asia-Pacific region — the virus spreads through sexual contact, contaminated equipment and unsafe blood transfusions — the country has not learnt any lessons from the 2019 HIV eruption in Larkana. The Unicef-UNAIDS modelling warns that “if programme coverage falls by half, an additional 1.1m children could acquire HIV”, and another 820,000 could die of AIDS-related complications by 2040, raising infections to 3m and deaths to 1.8m. But Pakistan continues to throw up nightmares. Recently, a hospital in Karachi was the scene of a health catastrophe — over 15 children were diagnosed with HIV. The provincial virus graph is climbing. Sindh’s HIV surge includes 3,995 registered HIV-positive children. Last year, Balochistan recorded 462 fresh cases, raising the total of registered infected patients to 2,823; there are concerns that the actual figure could range between 7,000 and 9,000.

Pakistan’s response to the HIV/AIDS conundrum is broken. This year’s theme, ‘Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response’ demands committed political leadership, “international cooperation, and human rights-centred approaches to end AIDS by 2030”. For Pakistan, it means policies cannot fester on paper amid absent databanks, a frail health infrastructure and an overreliance on foreign donors, particularly after the demise of USAID. The Global Fund has dropped its assistance by $27m. Funding cuts call for healthcare expansion to avert disruptions in timely diagnoses and prevention support. The National AIDS Control Programme, which is important for tackling the gap in public health data, is at a standstill thanks to insufficient resources. Consequently, treatment centres are far too few to cover patients and those at risk. The experience of battling a virus, which is stalked by stigma has transformed societies and science. Hence, we must adopt a multifaceted, humane stance that equates health with dignity in our attempts to save lives.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2025