At the opening session of the 2026 International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Director Jarbas Barbosa delivered a landmark address that balanced celebration of past progress against HIV with a urgent call to address persistent gaps in access to life-saving care across the Region of the Americas.
Barbosa opened by noting a historic turning point in the global fight against HIV: the Americas now holds more advanced tools for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment than at any other point in history. These innovations range from oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and long-acting injectable PrEP to rapid diagnostic tests and at-home HIV self-testing. To move closer to eliminating HIV as a public health crisis, Barbosa emphasized that expanding broad, equitable access to these tools—paired with investments in early detection and timely treatment initiation—will be non-negotiable.
The PAHO chief pointed to the region’s long track record of delivering on ambitious public health goals as a foundation for this next chapter of work. Through cross-border collaboration, reliance on scientific evidence, and investment in resilient primary health systems, the Americas has already eliminated polio and rubella, and multiple nations have successfully ended mother-to-child transmission of HIV. These achievements, he argued, prove that coordinated action can deliver transformative results.
Notably, Barbosa highlighted that Latin America and the Caribbean currently funds 92% of all HIV response investments through domestic resources—one of the highest shares of domestic financing for HIV programs anywhere in the world. This statistic, he emphasized, reflects the region’s unwavering long-term commitment to confronting the HIV epidemic.
“The question before us is no longer whether we have the tools to end HIV as a public health threat. We do,” Barbosa stated. “The question is whether we can ensure that those tools reach everyone who needs them, regardless of where they live, who they are, or the circumstances they face. Innovation only changes lives when people can access it.”
Recent public health data underscores how far the region has already come: between 2010 and 2025, AIDS-related deaths across Latin America and the Caribbean dropped by 46%. In 2024 alone, widespread access to antiretroviral treatment prevented an estimated 117,000 fatalities linked to AIDS. Access to PrEP has also grown exponentially, surging from just 35,000 people accessing the prevention tool in 2020 to more than 326,000 in 2025.
Despite these impressive gains, critical gaps in access and coverage continue to undermine progress. Roughly one in three new HIV diagnoses are still made at a late stage of infection, and nearly 900,000 people living with HIV across Latin America and the Caribbean are not receiving ongoing life-saving treatment. Late diagnosis, delayed treatment initiation, and challenges retaining patients in care all contribute to preventable deaths, and fuel the burden of co-infections such as tuberculosis— which remains the leading cause of death for people living with advanced HIV disease. Reducing HIV-related mortality and addressing advanced HIV disease are core priorities for PAHO at AIDS 2026.
Against this backdrop, PAHO used the conference’s opening to unveil two new regional initiatives designed to accelerate progress toward HIV elimination by 2030. The first is the Alliance for HIV Elimination in the Americas, a new cross-sector regional platform that will bring together governments, local community groups, international organizations, academic institutions, development partners, and private sector stakeholders to strengthen coordinated action. The Alliance is integrated into PAHO’s broader Disease Elimination Initiative, with core goals of boosting political leadership for HIV response, expanding equitable access to life-saving innovations, and promoting sustainable long-term investment to speed elimination across the region.
The second new initiative is the Path to HIV Elimination in the Americas, an evidence-based strategic framework that will support individual countries to track their progress toward elimination targets, identify unaddressed gaps in access and care, and document achievements along the way.
“If we maintain political commitment, protect the investments already made, and place equity at the center of every decision, ending HIV as a public health threat will be within our reach,” Barbosa said. “No country will achieve this goal alone.”
Barbosa also warned that ongoing risks threaten to reverse decades of hard-won progress, including growing financial pressures, shifting global political priorities, and deep-rooted systemic inequalities that leave marginalized communities behind. He reiterated that achieving elimination will require sustained investment in people-centered health systems, expanded access to PrEP and other new prevention and treatment tools, integrated service delivery that combines HIV care with treatment for tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, and other sexually transmitted infections, coordinated community-led action to reduce HIV-related stigma and discrimination, and continued support for the domestic investments that have driven steady progress to date.
Over the course of AIDS 2026, PAHO will advance these priorities through a full schedule of high-level events focused on HIV elimination, advancing care for advanced HIV disease, and expanding equitable access to innovative prevention, diagnostic, and treatment tools across the region.
