After a turbulent year for HIV and global health, 2026 opens with an urgent need to rethink the HIV response. The challenges we face demand more than incremental change. They require us to rethink how we work, rebuild what has been weakened and rise to meet a rapidly shifting global context.

We enter this year with a new IAS Strategy that charts a path through and beyond the turmoil, grounded in science and equity. Inaction will further erode hard-won progress. Bold, decisive leadership can protect it and move us forward as we rethink how the HIV response is financed, delivered and led.

We must:

Rethink financing.

Rethink service delivery.

Rethink prevention and access.

None of this rethinking can be done without sustaining science and protecting communities.

Read our full Annual Letter now, and please share it.

Working together to Rethink. Rebuild. Rise.

The HIV response has provided a model of collaboration among key actors across policy, financing, service delivery, science and communities. The IAS remains uniquely positioned to unite these actors, support the generation and application of evidence, and provide spaces to address challenges.

In the year ahead, the IAS will convene, enable, advocate and empower to help secure sustainable financing, promote an evidence-based response, and protect the role of communities. We look forward to seeing you at AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the global HIV community will come together to Rethink. Rebuild. Rise.