Star Metro - Fiji declares national HIV crisis

New HIV diagnoses surged to 2,016 cases in 2025 -- 16 times the level recorded in 2019, authorities said, vowing a "whole of government" response.

"I am formally declaring a national HIV emergency in Fiji," Health Minister Atonio Lalabalavu told reporters on Wednesday.

"This decision recognises the seriousness of the epidemic and the urgent, coordinated response our country now needs."

An estimated one in 60 adults in Fiji have HIV -- up from one in 167 five years earlier, the government said.

Two in every 100 pregnant women carry the virus, it said. Of the 59 babies born with HIV in 2025, 18 died before their first birthday.

The government said it was expanding access to free HIV testing, prevention services and treatment.

"This includes rapid testing, prevention medicine for people at higher risk, harm-reduction measures for people who inject drugs, and free treatment for people diagnosed with HIV."

Fiji said it was receiving external support in the effort, including from Australia, New Zealand, India, the Global Fund and the United Nations.

Among HIV cases with a known mode of transmission, more than half were linked to sexual transmission and more than 42 percent to injecting drug use, UNAIDS said.

- 'Change the course' -

The UN agency welcomed Fiji's plans to introduce legislation for a needle and syringe programme.

"Fiji still has an opportunity to change the course of this epidemic," said Eamonn Murphy, UNAIDS director for regions including Asia and the Pacific.

"Stronger cooperation across the Pacific and sustained international solidarity can reinforce the national effort and help accelerate action," he said in a statement.

HIV transmission rates began to increase around 2019 when a group of "very high-risk" injecting drug users emerged, primarily in the sex worker community, UNAIDS country director Renata Ram told AFP in Fiji earlier this year.

Pacific islands including Fiji have been transit hubs for drugs from Latin America and Asia destined for lucrative markets in Australia and New Zealand.

The flow of highly addictive drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine rose sharply after a lull during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

Those drugs are increasingly seeping into the Pacific's domestic markets -- in part due to foreign criminal syndicates opting to pay their local facilitators in kind.

M.Johnson--SMC