December 1, 2025
Today, on World AIDS Day 2025, we’re reflecting on humanity, justice, and human dignity. We celebrate the progress made and acknowledge the setbacks that populations throughout the world continue to confront. At the O’Neill Institute, we are charting pathways to respond to the urgent need to keep equity and community leadership at the center of the HIV response. This year’s theme: “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response,” speaks directly to the moment we’re in.
“World AIDS Day is a powerful reminder of our shared commitment to advance health justice,” said Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin, O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and O’Neill Institute Faculty Director. “Ending HIV requires confronting structural inequities head-on, rejecting stigma in all its forms, and ensuring every person has access to the care and dignity they deserve.”
“The defining characteristic of the HIV movement has been community advocacy and action. As the domestic HIV response has been significantly weakened through the loss of critical federal HIV leadership and staff and disrupted funding for HIV research and services, our community has not been passive,” said Jeffrey S. Crowley, a distinguished scholar and director of the Center for HIV and Infectious Disease Policy. “As Congress finally negotiates a budget for fiscal year 2026, we have an important opportunity to keep telling America’s story of progress in the fight to end the HIV pandemic and to protect the critical investments that reduce HIV transmission and that save and improve lives.”
“After more than two decades of progress, we now have all the tools needed to end HIV as a global health threat. But that progress is fragile,” said Dr. Charles B. Holmes, director of Georgetown Center for Innovation in Global Health and a professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center. “With donor support waning, we face a pivotal moment that requires governments, civil society, and communities to unite behind a sustainable vision — one that secures long-term financing, strengthens and integrates the health workforce, and protects the most vulnerable.”
At the O’Neill Institute, we stand with our partners and colleagues around the world who are working every day to build an HIV response that is resilient, equitable, and truly transformative.