New WHO data shows that an estimated 1.3 million people acquired HIV in 2024, compared with 2.2 million in 2010.  

The number of people living with HIV globally reached 40.8 million by the end of 2024, as the global HIV new-infection rate stood at 0.16 per 1,000 uninfected people, down 40 per cent from 0.27 in 2010. 

The African region’s incidence rate fell by 70 per cent since 2010, faster than any other WHO region and nearly double the global pace. Yet Africa still accounts for 65 per cent of all people living with HIV worldwide, with a regional rate of 0.53 per 1,000 uninfected, more than three times the global average. South-East Asia, by contrast, has cut its rate by 50 per cent to reach 0.06 per 1,000. The Western Pacific and Eastern Mediterranean sit at 0.05 and 0.04 respectively. 

The 2030 target requires a 90 per cent reduction from baseline. Globally, the world is off track, needing to close a further gap of 0.10 per 1,000. Africa’s residual gap is 0.47 per 1,000, by far the largest of any region. South-East Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific have already reached their indicative 2030 targets. 

In Kenya, the National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC) estimates that 1,481,853 people were living with HIV in Kenya as of 2026, with new infections falling to 13,936, a 56 per cent decline from the 32,027 cases recorded in 2020. AIDS-related deaths fell to 19,434 in 2026, a seven per cent reduction from 21,007 in 2024. Approximately 1.4 million Kenyans are currently on antiretroviral therapy. 

Among new adult infections in Kenya, 41 per cent occur among young people aged 15 to 24, with young women disproportionately represented. The Ministry of Health has noted that HIV-positive women face a six-fold higher risk of cervical cancer, accounting for more than 5,200 new cases annually. Tuberculosis, the leading infectious cause of death among people with HIV, claimed approximately 23,500 lives in Kenya, with an estimated 20,000 of those deaths linked to HIV co-infection. 

The January 2025 withdrawal of PEPFAR and USAID support sent immediate shockwaves through Kenya’s health infrastructure. According to the Ministry of Health, 2,127 facilities reported service disruptions, with rural facilities hit 3.2 times harder than urban centres. Emergency integration of services, with HIV, TB, and malaria delivered through a single platform, protected the gains, with 99.8 per cent of disrupted facilities maintaining continuity through this approach. The Ministry is now formally pursuing the Kenya AIDS Integration Strategic Framework (KAISF) 2025–2030, which consolidates treatment for HIV, TB, sexually transmitted infections, and non-communicable diseases into a single facility visit. 

Tuberculosis: One Region Moving Backwards as Progress Stalls Globally 

The global tuberculosis incidence rate was 131 per 100,000 people in 2024, a 12 per cent reduction from the 150 per 100,000 recorded at the 2015 baseline. The WHO End TB Strategy calls for an 80 per cent reduction by 2030. The world has achieved roughly one-seventh of that target in nearly a decade. 

WHO data shows that 10.7 million people fell ill with tuberculosis in 2024, and 1.23 million died from it, making TB the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. Among people living with HIV, TB remains the primary killer. 

South-East Asia carried the highest burden at 199 per 100,000, followed closely by the African region at 197. Europe, at just 23 per 100,000, is the only WHO region to have reached its indicative 2030 target, having achieved a 39 per cent reduction from baseline. Africa cut its rate by 28 per cent and South-East Asia by 10 per cent, both improving but insufficiently.  

The region’s TB incidence rose by 13 per cent since 2015, from 27 to 31 per 100,000. This is the only major WHO region moving in the wrong direction. Its distance to the 2030 target now stands at six per 100,000, compared with Africa’s 172 and South-East Asia’s 174. 

Globally, only about two in five people with drug-resistant TB accessed treatment in 2024. Around 87 per cent of new TB cases occur in just 30 high-burden countries, with India, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bangladesh together accounting for two-thirds of the global total. 

In Kenya, the Ministry of Health reported 96,865 TB cases in 2024 out of an estimated 124,000, leaving approximately 20 per cent undiagnosed. TB deaths have declined by 66 per cent since 2015, but Ministry of Health data shows that 14 people still die from TB in Kenya every day, one every two hours. TB screening among people living with HIV dropped by 46 per cent between 2024 and 2025, a development described by health officials as particularly concerning given the lethal relationship between the two infections. Kenya secured Sh1.26 billion in Global Fund resources under the 2024–2026 grant cycle specifically for TB detection, treatment, and management of drug-resistant strains. 

Malaria: The One SDG Infectious Disease Moving the Wrong Way Globally 

The WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria sets a 90 per cent reduction in case incidence by 2030. Global malaria incidence was 64 per 1,000 people at risk in 2024, up 8.5 per cent from 59 per 1,000 in 2015. This is the only SDG 3.3 indicator moving in the wrong direction at the global level. 

According to the WHO World Malaria Report, there were 282 million cases of malaria in 2024, an increase of roughly nine million compared with 2023. Estimated deaths stood at 610,000, up from 598,000 the previous year. The African region alone reported an incidence rate of 238 per 1,000, roughly four times the global average, and accounts for the overwhelming majority of cases and deaths globally. 

South-East Asia is the one genuine bright spot, having cut its incidence by 75 per cent since 2015, already reaching its 2025 milestone. The Western Pacific is down 20 per cent. The African region rose by six per cent. The Americas rose by 40 per cent. The Eastern Mediterranean rose by 19 per cent. The global increase is driven primarily by sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America, where climate variability, insecticide resistance, and funding gaps have combined to create conditions for resurgent transmission. 

Malaria funding dropped by approximately 50 per cent between 2015 and 2024 globally, from $879 million to $439 million. This contraction, accelerated by the withdrawal of US foreign aid support, has created serious gaps in prevention, diagnostics, and treatment, particularly in high-burden countries that rely heavily on external financing. 

For Kenya, the malaria picture worsened considerably in 2025. WHO’s World Malaria Report recorded 4,186,000 cases in Kenya that year, up from 3,294,000 in 2024, an increase of roughly 892,000 infections in a single year. This moved Kenya from 21st to 23rd globally by case burden, and from 21st to 20th within Africa. Although cases had fallen by 17.8 per cent between 2023 and 2024 as prevention programmes showed effect, the 2024 El Niño rains triggered a sharp spike through flooding and expanded mosquito breeding grounds. Climate projections suggest this pattern will intensify. 

Kenya’s malaria burden is geographically concentrated. Western Kenya and the coast carry the highest transmission loads, with Plasmodium falciparum accounting for more than 99 per cent of infections. Approximately 70 per cent of Kenya’s population is at risk, with 14 million people in endemic areas and a further 17 million in zones of epidemic or seasonal transmission. The Kenya Malaria Strategy 2023–2027 provides the national framework for response, though implementation depends substantially on Global Fund resources: Sh2.28 billion was secured under the current grant, funding insecticide-treated nets, indoor residual spraying, and treatment drugs. 

Hepatitis: Africa Is the Last Region Above the 1 Per cent Threshold for Children Under Five 

Globally, an estimated 240 million people were living with hepatitis B and 47 million with hepatitis C in 2024. New infections of both have declined over the past decade, though unevenly. New hepatitis B infections dropped from 1.3 million in 2015 to 0.9 million in 2024. New hepatitis C infections fell only marginally over the same period, from 1.0 million to 0.9 million, and the Americas was the only region where new hepatitis C infections actually rose since 2015. 

Global hepatitis B prevalence among children under five fell to 0.60 per cent in 2024, a 25 per cent reduction from 0.80 per cent in 2015. The 2030 target is 0.1 per cent, a level requiring a further 83 per cent reduction in less than six years. 

The African region remains the only WHO region where under-5 prevalence still exceeds one per cent, at 1.30 per cent. Africa’s rate is 13 times the 2030 target and has fallen by only 35 per cent since 2015. It accounts for 68 per cent of new hepatitis B infections globally. The Americas and Europe have already hit their targets. South-East Asia, at 0.50 per cent, is down 45 per cent. Europe fell by 50 per cent to reach 0.10 per cent. 

Birth-dose vaccination remains the primary lever. The hepatitis B birth-dose vaccine, when administered within 24 hours of delivery, is highly effective at preventing mother-to-child transmission, which drives the majority of childhood infections. Coverage rates in Africa remain well below what is needed to reach the 2030 target, a gap the WHO has described as the biggest unfinished lever for hepatitis B control. 

Neglected Tropical Diseases: A Billion People Still Waiting for Care 

The NTD indicator, people requiring mass or individual preventive treatment for conditions including lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiases, and trachoma, stood at 1.41 billion globally in 2024. That is a 36 per cent reduction from 2.19 billion in 2010, achieved even as the global population grew by more than one billion people over the same period. The 2030 target requires reducing the figure to approximately 70 million, a further 95 per cent cut. 

The African region carries the highest burden at 600 million people, followed by South-East Asia at 530 million. Europe is the only region at target. Africa reduced its burden by 33 per cent and South-East Asia by 38 per cent since 2010, but both remain enormously far from where they need to be by 2030. The total global gap to target is 1.34 billion people. 

Mass preventive treatment campaigns have driven the headline reduction. At least one NTD has been eliminated in 54 countries by end-2024, a genuine public health achievement. But the scale of what remains, particularly in Africa and South-East Asia, means NTDs represent the largest single residual challenge of the five SDG 3.3 disease targets, in terms of raw numbers of people affected. 

Antimicrobial Resistance: A Sixth Front, Less Visible but Just as Serious 

Sitting alongside the five disease-specific targets, SDG indicator 3.d.2 tracks bloodstream infections caused by antimicrobial-resistant organisms, a quieter but compounding threat to everything above. In 2023, the global level of E. coli resistance to third-generation cephalosporins stood at 45.1 per cent, while methicillin resistance in Staphylococcus aureus reached 35.1 per cent, with substantial variation across regions. The burden falls hardest in settings with the weakest diagnostic and surveillance capacity, which are frequently the same countries carrying the heaviest loads of HIV, TB, and malaria. 

What the Scoreboard Tells Governments, and What It Demands 

The WHO World Health Statistics 2026 report notes that progress is heavily donor-dependent in the highest-burden regions, and the financing picture has deteriorated sharply. Official development assistance for health was an estimated 30 to 40 per cent lower in 2025 than in 2023. The withdrawal of US foreign aid in early 2025 demonstrated, in real time, how quickly gains can be threatened when external financing contracts. Kenya’s experience, a health system scrambling to integrate services overnight after 2,127 facilities faced disruption, is a preview of what deeper, sustained funding cuts could mean at scale. 

Climate change is actively reshaping the disease landscape, and for malaria in particular, shifting rainfall, flooding, and extended transmission seasons are compounding the effects of reduced prevention spending. Kenya’s 27 per cent single-year increase in malaria cases in 2025 was in part a climate event as much as a health system failure. 

The burden is not equally distributed within regions; in Kenya, young women account for the majority of new HIV infections among 15-to 24-year-olds. In TB, the undiagnosed fraction remains at roughly 20 per cent of estimated cases. In malaria, western Kenya and the coast bear far more than their population share of the national burden. Health system responses that treat these as aggregate numbers rather than geographically and demographically specific problems will continue to underperform. 

The 2030 deadline for SDG 3.3 is four years away, yet the gap between where the world is and where it needs to be is, on most indicators, far larger than what four years of current-trajectory progress would close.  

Source: WHO World Health Statistics 2026, National Syndemic Diseases Control Council (NSDCC), Ministry of Health, Kenya AIDS Progress Report 2025, the Kenya Malaria Strategy 2023–2027 

Data analytics & visualisation: Stanley Njihia  
Text: Yvonne Kawira