France, March 8 -- After recording more than 1,000 new infections in 2024, in a population of 900,000, authorities in Fiji announced the launch of an HIV epidemic response plan and the implementation of a four-year HIV control strategy.

"Fiji has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in the world, which is very worrying," says Dr Mark Jacobs, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the South Pacific, who is based in Fiji.

In its 2025 global report on AIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), a sister agency of the WHO, estimated that the number of new HIV infections in Fiji has increased by 3,091 percent since 2010.

UNAIDS found that fewer than 500 people were living with HIV in the archipela...