The funding crisis reshaping global health has hit HIV prevention particularly hard. At the same time, science is handing us some of the most powerful HIV prevention tools we have ever had – long-acting injectables like lenacapavir and cabotegravir, and a monthly oral pill on the horizon.
But science alone does not deliver prevention. That takes systems, policy, funding and a trained healthcare workforce. It takes communities leading in planning, implementation and holding the HIV response to account.
This episode of HIV unmuted is a curtain raiser for AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference, taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and virtually. The theme of the conference, Rethink. Rebuild. Rise., is also the spirit of this episode. We look at what rethinking prevention means in people's lives, what it will take to rebuild the systems and political will to deliver innovation at scale, and how the global HIV response can rise to this moment.
