Fiji has declared a national HIV crisis as sexual transmission and illicit drug use help to spread the virus, now infecting an estimated one in 60 adults in the Pacific nation.
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 have the virus. Of the 59 babies born with HIV in 2025, 18 died before reaching their first birthday.
The government said it was expanding access to free HIV testing, prevention services and treatment, including rapid testing, preventive medication for people at higher risk and harm-reduction measures for people who inject drugs.
Fiji is receiving support from Australia, New Zealand, India, the Global Fund and the United Nations.
Among cases with a known mode of transmission, more than half were linked to sexual transmission and over 42 percent to injecting drug use, according to UNAIDS.
The UN agency welcomed Fiji’s plans to introduce legislation allowing a needle-and-syringe programme.
“Fiji still has an opportunity to change the course of this epidemic,” said Eamonn Murphy, UNAIDS director for Asia and the Pacific.
“Stronger cooperation across the Pacific and sustained international solidarity can reinforce the national effort and help accelerate action.”
HIV transmission began rising around 2019 with the emergence of a group of high-risk injecting drug users, UNAIDS country director Renata Ram told AFP earlier this year.
Fiji and other Pacific islands have served as transit hubs for drugs moving from Latin America and Asia to lucrative markets in Australia and New Zealand.
The flow of highly addictive drugs, increased sharply after a lull during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.
The drugs have increasingly entered domestic Pacific markets, partly because foreign criminal organisations sometimes pay local facilitators with drugs.
