Fiji declares national emergency as HIV infects 1 in 60 adults

HIV is spreading rapidly across Fiji, a Pacific island nation.

The Fijian government has declared a national emergency as the virus now infects roughly 1 in every 60 adults.

The surge in HIV infection rates is believed to have begun in 2019, when a group of drug users classified as an "ultra-high-risk" population emerged within the sex worker community.

According to AFP, Reuters and Yonhap, the Fijian government said in a recent statement that new HIV cases jumped 27 percent year-on-year to 2,016 in 2025. Compared with 2019, the number of new cases has grown sixteenfold.

According to UNAIDS, Fiji had a total of 9,100 people living with HIV as of last year — roughly 1 in 60 adults in a country of about 920,000 people. That ratio has surged from approximately 1 in 167 five years ago.

About 2 in every 100 pregnant women carry the virus, and 18 of the 59 babies born HIV-positive last year died before their first birthday.

UNAIDS said that among HIV cases with a confirmed transmission route, more than half were contracted through sexual contact and more than 42 percent through drug use, including the sharing of needles.

Drug traffickers have been using Pacific island nations, including Fiji, as transit points to supply methamphetamine and other narcotics produced in Latin America and Asia to markets in Australia and New Zealand, fueling a sharp rise in drug use across the region. Analysts say the trend has driven a parallel increase in HIV infections.

Fijian authorities plan to improve access to HIV prevention and treatment by expanding free, voluntary and confidential HIV testing, introducing pre-exposure prophylaxis, and providing free treatment for those already infected. The goal is to detect and treat cases at an early stage.