The impact and cost of reaching the UNAIDS global HIV targets

John Stover, Deepak Mattur, Mariana Siapka, Triantafyllos Pliakas and Ricardo Valladares-Cardona

PLOS Global Public Health, 2026, vol. 6, issue 10, 1-11

Abstract: HIV funding has been declining in the past decade creating a large gap in required funding. In 2024, UNAIDS (Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) convened a Global Task Team in 2024 to recommend new targets and approaches for 2030 for key HIV interventions. This paper describes the approach to estimate the impact and cost of achieving those targets. We calibrated an HIV simulation model, Goals, to the historical HIV epidemic in 134 countries and used the model to project the impact of achieving the UNAIDS targets by 2030. Resource needs were estimated for 118 low-, lower-middle and upper-middle income countries (LMIC). To estimate the cost of achieving the targets we compiled a database of the unit costs for each intervention from published studies, country reports and commodity costs. Achieving the UNAIDS 2030 targets would reduce the annual number of new HIV infections globally by 77% from 2023 to 2030, from 1.3 million to 300,000. The number of AIDS deaths would decline by 50% over the same period. Resources needed to achieve the targets in all LMIC would rise to US$21.9 billion by 2030. Of this amount, 17% is needed in low-income countries, 38% in lower-middle income countries and 45% in upper-middle income countries. Achieving the UNAIDS targets for 2030 would reduce the annual number of new HIV infections to just 9% of the peak value in 1995 and AIDS deaths to 13% of the peak value in 2004. The resources required to achieve these targets are substantial but $7 billion less than previous estimates of $29.3 billion.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pgph00:0007360

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0007360

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