An estimated 40.8 million people were living with HIV worldwide at the end of 2024. That number includes 39.4 million adults and 1.4 million children under 15. While the total number of people living with the virus remains high, new infections and deaths have dropped significantly over the past two decades.
New Infections Each Year
About 1.3 million people acquired HIV in 2024. That represents a 40% decline in annual new infections since 2010 and a 61% drop since the peak year of 1995, when the epidemic was spreading largely unchecked. The decline reflects expanded testing, wider use of preventive medications, and broader access to treatment, which lowers the amount of virus in a person’s body and makes transmission far less likely.
Despite the progress, 1.3 million new infections per year is still well above international targets. Much of the ongoing transmission is concentrated among specific groups that face barriers to healthcare access, including social stigma, criminalization, and lack of funding for prevention programs tailored to their needs.
How Many People Are on Treatment
At the end of 2024, 77% of people living with HIV were receiving antiretroviral therapy. That’s a dramatic increase from just 24% in 2010. Antiretroviral therapy suppresses the virus to undetectable levels in the blood, which keeps the immune system intact, prevents progression to AIDS, and effectively eliminates the risk of sexual transmission.
The remaining 23%, roughly 9 to 10 million people, are either unaware of their status or unable to access consistent treatment. Closing that gap is one of the biggest challenges in the global HIV response. People who go untreated face a much higher risk of serious illness and death, and they can unknowingly pass the virus to others.
Deaths From HIV
An estimated 630,000 people died from HIV-related causes in 2024. That number is 70% lower than the peak in 2004, when roughly 2 million people were dying each year. The steep decline tracks closely with the expansion of treatment access. When someone with HIV takes effective medication consistently, their life expectancy approaches that of the general population.
Most HIV-related deaths now occur among people who were diagnosed late, dropped out of care, or never started treatment. In many low-income settings, limited healthcare infrastructure and supply chain problems still leave people without reliable access to the medications they need.
Children Living With HIV
About 1.4 million children under 15 were living with HIV at the end of 2024, down from 2.7 million in 2010. Nearly all pediatric infections happen through mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. When a pregnant woman receives antiretroviral therapy and the virus is suppressed, the chance of passing HIV to her baby drops to below 1%.
The steep decline in pediatric cases is one of the clearest success stories in the HIV response. Several countries have virtually eliminated mother-to-child transmission through routine prenatal testing and immediate treatment for mothers who test positive.
HIV in the United States
In 2023, over 1.1 million people aged 13 and older were living with diagnosed HIV in the United States and its territories. There were 39,201 new HIV diagnoses that year, translating to a rate of 13.7 diagnoses per 100,000 people. The U.S. epidemic is heavily concentrated by geography and demographics. Southern states account for a disproportionate share of new diagnoses, and rates are highest among Black and Hispanic men who have sex with men.
The “diagnosed” figure is an important distinction. The true number of people living with HIV in the U.S. is higher because it includes people who have not yet been tested. The CDC estimates that roughly 1 in 8 Americans with HIV don’t know they have it, which is why routine screening is recommended for everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 at least once in their lifetime, with more frequent testing for those at higher risk.
Why the Numbers Keep Rising Even as Infections Fall
It may seem contradictory that 40.8 million people are living with HIV when new infections have been falling for decades. The explanation is straightforward: treatment keeps people alive. Before antiretroviral therapy became widely available, most people with HIV died within a decade of infection. Now, millions of people who acquired the virus years or even decades ago are living full lives on medication. The total number of people living with HIV rises each year that new infections outpace deaths, even modestly.
This is, in a real sense, a sign of progress. A growing number of people living with HIV reflects the fact that fewer people are dying from it. The goal isn’t to reduce the number of people living with HIV through mortality. It’s to drive new infections to zero while keeping everyone already infected healthy and on treatment.