Fiji recorded 2,003 new HIV diagnoses in 2025 as the epidemic widens beyond its initial outbreak groups, Health Minister Dr Ratu Atonio Lalabalavu told Parliament on Wednesday, warning the situation has reached “crisis” levels and requires an emergency, multi-year response.
Dr Lalabalavu said the 2025 total marked a sharp rise from 1,583 new diagnoses in 2024 and reflected a dramatic increase in the national diagnosis rate — to 226 per 100,000 in 2025, up from just 13 per 100,000 in 2019, a roughly 17-fold jump. “The latest figures confirm that HIV is worsening and spreading beyond the initial outbreak,” he said in response to the President’s address.
The minister stressed the epidemic is increasingly affecting women and families, noting antenatal prevalence has climbed. National antenatal HIV prevalence is now estimated at 3.1 percent, rising to 3.7 percent at CWM in 2025, he said — a signal, he added, that transmission is moving into the wider community. The toll on infants has also risen: an estimated 59 babies were born with HIV in 2025, up from 31 in 2024, and Dr Lalabalavu revealed at least one baby died every month from HIV during 2025.
To slow and reverse the trend, Dr Lalabalavu urged Parliament to back a strengthened national response that brings government, communities, civil society and technical partners together under a high-level, multi-sector framework operationalised through the National HIV Outbreak and Cluster Response Taskforce (N-HOCRT). He said the Taskforce “brings together the right technical expertise and community reach,” but warned the expansion of the epidemic now requires stronger whole-of-government mobilisation across the social drivers of infection.
The minister called for the national effort to be put on an emergency operational footing to cut bottlenecks and accelerate approvals for recruitment, procurement, infrastructure and legal instruments needed to expand services quickly and safely. “Put simply, we need to move from planning and coordination to visible, sustained delivery on the ground in every division,” he told lawmakers.
Most urgently, Dr Lalabalavu asked Parliament to commit to a minimum five-year national response and to establish a dedicated sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and HIV Project Management Unit to drive implementation and performance under the strategic direction of N-HOCRT. He warned the response must remain above partisan politics: “HIV does not recognise political lines. The country needs an apolitical, united stance that will hold through this year’s election and beyond,” he said, arguing stability, funding and accountability across the multi-year period are essential.
Dr Lalabalavu concluded by saying that with parliamentary support and continued Cabinet leadership, Fiji can still reverse the epidemic’s trajectory, protect mothers and babies and restore national health security — but only if the government moves rapidly from planning into sustained, operational action.
Leave a comment