Countries With the Highest HIV Rate 2025

What this chart shows. The 23 countries with the highest share of adults aged 15 to 49 living with HIV in 2025. Eswatini led with 22.4%, ahead of Lesotho at 16.3% and South Africa at 15.9%; the world average was 0.7%. All of the countries except Fiji, Haiti and Suriname are in the WHO African Region.

How the data is collected. Prevalence is the share of people in an age group who are living with HIV, whether or not they know it or are on treatment. UNAIDS reports it for ages 15 to 49, the ages covered by most national household surveys that test blood samples for HIV, and those surveys anchor the Spectrum estimates.

Background. Prevalence fell since 2010 in 21 of the 23 countries, even though treatment keeps more people alive: Botswana went from 23.1% to 14.7% and Zimbabwe from 16.3% to 9.3%. It rose in only two. Fiji jumped from 0.1% to 1.6%, and Suriname edged up from 1.5% to 1.6%.

Limits. The list stops at 23 because the next three countries are tied at 1.5%. Côte d'Ivoire has no estimate in the 2025 release; the World Bank's copy of the previous UNAIDS round put it at 1.7% for 2024, which would place it on this list. Values are rounded to one decimal, so Haiti, Suriname, Angola and Togo all show 1.6%.