Australia has reached a major milestone in its decades-long fight against HIV, with diagnoses falling by a quarter over the past decade.
The nation is also achieving ambitious global testing and treatment targets for the first time.
But while researchers say Australia is edging closer to ending HIV as a public health threat by 2030, they warn progress is not being shared equally.
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First Nations Australians, overseas-born communities and people diagnosed late are continuing to face significant risks.
New data released by the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney found 753 people were diagnosed with HIV in Australia in 2025, with annual diagnosis numbers remaining largely unchanged over the past three years.
However, diagnoses have fallen from 1006 in 2016, while the population-adjusted diagnosis rate has dropped by about a third over the same period.
The longer-term trend
The results mean Australia has achieved the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) 95-95-95 targets for the first time.
The targets aim for 95 per cent of people living with HIV to be diagnosed and know their status, for 95 per cent of those who have been diagnosed to be receiving treatment, and for 95 per cent of those being treated to be achieving viral suppression.
Researchers say reaching the benchmark places Australia among a small group of countries on track to end HIV as a public health threat by the end of the decade.
However, the report paints a more complicated picture beneath the headline achievement.
HIV cases in remote First Nation communities are rising Credit: AAP
First Nations Australians were diagnosed with HIV at almost twice the rate of Australian-born non-Indigenous Australians in 2025, with 37 diagnoses recorded during the year.
The diagnosis rate among First Nations people was 3.9 per 100,000 population, compared with 2.1 per 100,000 among non-Indigenous Australians.
Researchers described the disparity as deeply concerning, arguing longstanding barriers to culturally safe healthcare continue to undermine access to prevention, testing and treatment.
“First Nations peoples remain almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with HIV than non-Indigenous Australians,” First Nations Health Research Program manager Robert Monaghan said.
“This inequity is unacceptable.”
Kirby Institute epidemiologist Dr Skye McGregor said the figures demonstrate the need to work closely with communities to ensure testing, treatment and prevention responses are accessible and culturally appropriate.
Kirby Institute First Nations point-of-care program lead Kim Gates said stronger testing efforts by Aboriginal community-controlled health services may have contributed to higher diagnosis rates.
“People living in remote communities do have poorer access to health services, so we still need to be ensuring that Aboriginal people are being screened at least twice a year for STIs,” she said.
Gates said healthcare workers also needed to challenge assumptions about who was at risk of HIV.
Stigma and discrimination remained barriers to testing and treatment, she said, preventing some people from accessing care early.
Two thirds of HIV cases are found in gay and bisexual men. Credit: AAP
Disparities across Australia’s HIV response
Gay and bisexual men accounted for almost two-thirds of all HIV diagnoses in 2025.
While diagnoses among Australian-born gay and bisexual men have almost halved over the past decade, declines have been much smaller among men born overseas.
Researchers say overseas-born gay and bisexual men remain one of the groups most vulnerable to HIV transmission and continue to face barriers accessing prevention tools and healthcare after arriving in Australia.
Another challenge is the number of people diagnosed years after contracting the virus.
One-third of HIV diagnoses in 2025 were classified as late diagnoses, with the highest rates among heterosexual men and women and gay and bisexual men born in South-East Asia.
“Late HIV diagnoses are a major health concern, heightening the risk to both individuals’ health and community transmission rates,” McGregor said.
STIs are still on the rise in Australia. Credit: AAP
The findings also highlight broader concerns about sexually transmitted infections across Australia.
Chlamydia remained the nation’s most commonly diagnosed STI, with about 94,000 cases recorded in 2025.
It was followed by gonorrhoea with about 42,000 diagnoses and infectious syphilis with about 6000.
While chlamydia rates have remained largely stable over the past decade, gonorrhoea diagnoses have risen by 57 per cent and infectious syphilis notifications by 56 per cent.
All three infections continue to be recorded at higher rates among First Nations Australians.
Researchers also reported a sharp rise in syphilis among women, with notifications increasing by 170 per cent over the decade compared with a 39 per cent increase among men.
Forty babies died from congenital syphilis between 2016 and 2025, including 23 First Nations infants.
Fiji has had a rapid rise of HIV due to drug use. Credit: 7You
Island nations struggling with rapid rise of HIV
However, the challenges facing Australia seem small when compared with a growing crisis unfolding elsewhere in the Pacific.
Fiji, long known internationally as a tourist and honeymoon destination, declared a national HIV emergency after experiencing a dramatic surge in infections over the past decade.
Health authorities estimate more than 9000 people are now living with HIV, with reports suggesting about one in 60 adults is infected.
Public health specialists have described Fiji’s outbreak as the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the world, with about two-thirds of infections occurring among people aged between 20 and 34.
Officials have linked the surge to a parallel epidemic of crystal methamphetamine use, particularly among young people who inject the drug.
Sailosi Soqo, a doctor working on the national HIV response team said COVID lockdowns trigged the drug use.
“COVID was a difficult time for Fijians,” Soqo told NPR.
“Most lost their jobs, got less hours or were stuck at home. At the same time, we suspect that the travel restrictions, along with increased border security, decreased the movement of narcotics onto their target countries — drugs that would otherwise have moved on stayed in Fiji, seeding this domestic market which didn’t really exist before.”
The widespread sharing of needles has accelerated transmission, creating a new challenge for health authorities trying to contain the outbreak.
Reports suggest that, on average, one infected person in Fiji will pass the virus on to 10 others.
“You add the existing culture in Fiji of sharing things, plus the limited access to clean injecting equipment, and you get the perfect storm for HIV transmission,” Soqo said.
According to clinicians working in affected communities, young people and even children have become increasingly exposed to injectable drug use.
“The communities I work with report children as young as nine using injectable drugs,” Soqo said.
The outbreak has been cited by public health experts as a warning of how quickly HIV can spread when prevention, testing and treatment efforts fail to keep pace with changing behaviours and emerging risks.
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