[AIDS 2026] Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean helped build the future of HIV prevention. But will they be able to benefit from it?

Unitaid blog post

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean helped build the future of HIV prevention. But will they be able to benefit from it?

Across Latin America and the Caribbean, home to more than 650 million people, HIV remains a significant public health challenge. The region accounts for around one in ten new HIV infections globally, while treatment coverage is limited to 71% of people living with HIV, leaving many without the care they need. New infections and AIDS-related mortality continue to disproportionately affect key populations.

Latin America and the Caribbean occupy an uncomfortable middle ground. Most countries in the region are classified as middle-income economies. On paper, this suggests they can finance their own health responses. In practice, many face severe fiscal constraints, fragmented procurement systems, regulatory hurdles and limited negotiating power when new health technologies come to market. The result is a dangerous access gap. 

A new supplement of the Journal of the International AIDS Society, sponsored by Unitaid, explores the realities of HIV in Latin America and the Caribbean through multiple lenses.

Health Policy Watch news story

New HIV frontier: The fight to access long-acting prevention drugs

Access to Gilead’s lenacapavir has been slow, particularly for countries in Latin America.

Brazil, which faces significant HIV transmission in certain groups, has been routinely excluded from HIV voluntary licensing deals offered by pharmaceutical companies – particularly for long-acting PrEP – as it is deemed an upper middle-income country.

Brazilian Health Minister Dr Alexandre Padilha told AIDS 2026 being hosted in his country that negotiations with Gilead had run aground as the company wanted a price 10 times higher than that being paid by Indonesia and Thailand.

Brazil offers PrEP as part of its free universal health coverage, and Padilha said he was not prepared to bankrupt the health system by paying a high price for lenacapavir.

Devex news story /free registration is required/

Why is Latin America still waiting for long-acting HIV prevention?

As experts reveal how new prevention methods could change the global HIV response, most of Latin America is still looking for access to the new injectables and pills.

At AIDS 2026, Brazilian officials have announced tentative agreements to integrate the long-acting injectable, cabotegravir, into the country’s health system and have agreed with Merck to explore possible access to the company’s long-acting oral version of PrEP, which is still in clinical trials.

The country — and other countries across Latin America — have still not gained affordable access to lenacapavir, though.

Science news story

Activists and leaders at global HIV meeting decry price of prevention drug

Activists briefly interrupted the opening ceremony of AIDS 2026 to protest the lack of access in Latin America to lenacapavir, a new long-lasting drug that prevents HIV infection. Brazilian officials, too, criticized the drug’s manufacturer, Gilead Sciences, for not making the drug available at an affordable price in the region, as did World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS.