More than 500 people die of HIV last year

A total of 559 people died and 614 others tested positive for HIV in 2024, indicating that the fight against the deadly diseases is still far from over despite various measures taken for its prevention and treatment.

Though data from the National Centre for AIDS and STD Control shows 76 percent decline in death from HIV compared to 2010 and 89 percent decline in the new infection rate compared to 2000, hundreds of people are still getting infected every year.

According to government data, 2,400 people had died from HIV in 2010, and 5,600 new cases of HIV were reported in 2000. In 2024, at least 37 children under 14 years of age tested HIV positive, down from 260 in 2010—an 86 percent decline.

Data from the centre show that 26,372 people, or 77 percent of the total infected, are enrolled in antiretroviral therapy (ART). Along with this, the government provides services like prevention of mother-to-child transmission, CD4 count and viral load tests, and HIV testing during pregnancy, among others, all free of cost.

Officials complain that despite efforts to expand prevention and treatment services, the country continues to face several hurdles in its HIV response. Hard-to-procure commodities, shortages of local and community-level resources, and limited technical capacity have hindered programme performance, according to them.

“ART counsellors remain insufficient, supply-chain gaps persist, and community-based outreach is constrained,” said Dr Sarbesh Sharma, director at the Centre. “Limited budgets and funding cuts by development partners also increase challenges in Nepal’s fight against HIV.”

Major aid agencies, including USAID suspended funding, and this year the budget from the Global Fund was also not released on time. Due to funding cuts by USAID, hundreds of female sex workers and gay men, and people taking injectable drugs in Nepal have been deprived of pre-exposure prophylaxis since January.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis is a medicine that people at risk for HIV take to prevent infection from unprotected sex or injectable drug use.

Since the Health Ministry does not have its own preventive programmes, hundreds of at-risk people, including pregnant women whose husbands are HIV positive, have been deprived of medicine. This medicine is given to such women to prevent transmission of infection from infected husbands.

Awareness campaigns targeting female sex workers, homosexual men, and other high-risk groups, community testing of HIV, behavioural change and other targeted interventions have also been halted indefinitely.

HIV testing in Nepal has declined alarmingly in the first half of 2025, a drop experts say could reverse years of progress against the disease.

According to data from the National Center for AIDS and STD Control under the Department of Health Services, 214,722 people underwent HIV testing from January to June this year, compared to 325,514 in the same period in 2024.

In 2024, an estimated 34,337 people were living with HIV in Nepal – 4,037 more than in 2023.