Countries by HIV Prevalence Rate 2024

Countries ranked by HIV prevalence among adults aged 15 to 49, as a percentage, reported by UNAIDS for 2024. Eswatini records the highest rate at 26.8 percent, followed by Lesotho on 23.1 percent and Botswana on 20.8 percent.

All eight countries in this table are in southern Africa, and the concentration is the single most important fact about the global epidemic: the region holds a small share of the world's population and a large share of everyone living with HIV. In Eswatini, more than one adult in four is living with the virus.

The most misread aspect of this dataset is what prevalence measures. Prevalence is the share of people currently living with HIV — it counts people, not new infections. When antiretroviral treatment works well, people with HIV live long lives, so prevalence stays high or rises even as the epidemic is brought under control. New infections are measured separately, as incidence, and in several of the countries listed here incidence has fallen sharply while prevalence has not.

That distinction matters for how these numbers should be read. A high prevalence figure in 2024 reflects both the scale of past transmission and the success of treatment programmes in keeping people alive. Botswana and Eswatini in particular have among the highest treatment coverage rates in the world.

UNAIDS estimates carry uncertainty ranges, since they are modelled from surveys, clinic data and testing programmes rather than counted directly. Small differences between countries in this table are inside those ranges and should not be treated as a meaningful ordering.