Despite funding cuts to HIV prevention and treatment programs and grants, Allegheny County saw the lowest number of new HIV diagnoses in 2025 since it began tracking the disease.
The county health department announced the milestone in an Aug. 19 press release, applauding local advocacy to treat, prevent and educate about HIV, as well as calling for sustained efforts to work to eliminate the disease.
"Never in my lifetime did I think we would see these numbers," said Richard Smith, vice president of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, which manages the organization leading HIV prevention and treatment efforts in Allegheny County. "This milestone belongs to the entire community. The organizations delivering care, the public health professionals coordinating
these efforts, and the individuals who sought testing, prevention and treatment all contributed to this historic achievement."
Here's why the numbers have dropped.
Rates of new HIV diagnoses drop in Pittsburgh area
In 2025, Allegheny County saw the lowest number of new HIV diagnoses since it began surveilling the disease, according to the county's disease dashboard, recording 53 new cases for the year.
Allegheny began requiring healthcare providers to report HIV diagnoses to the county in 2001. The following year, diagnoses were required to be reported to the state. The online HIV surveillance dashboard shows data since 2016, when Allegheny saw 115 new HIV diagnoses.
"This is an extraordinary public health achievement, and it is important that we recognize what these numbers tell us: public health investments work," Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said in a Aug. 19 press release. "This progress also reminds us that ending HIV requires sustained commitment. We have to continue to protect and build upon the infrastructure, partnerships and trust that made this possible."
The county has committed to ending the HIV epidemic in Allegheny by 2030.
Who's leading efforts to prevent, treat HIV in Pittsburgh area?
In Pittsburgh and throughout Allegheny, the effort to eliminate HIV is a collabroative movement with AIDS Free Pittsburgh, an organization managed by the Jewish Healthcare Foundation. It's the "backbone organization for a regional collective impact initiative" that has brought more than 50 partners together, according to Allegheny County Health Department.
These partners have helped provide HIV prevention, education, testing, treatment and outreach efforts throughout the community as they've expanded testing and access to PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis medication), worked to quickly connect patients to appropriate care and advocated for reducing the stigma surrounding the treatment and prevention of HIV. Over the course of its work, Aids Free Pittsburgh estimated that PrEP use has increased by about 400%.
Act Up Pittsburgh, a nonpartisan collective dedicated to direct action to combat AIDS, credited the decrease in new diagnoses to people living with HIV.
"This is a testament to the incredible work of the region’s community members, activists, and scientists. But most importantly, it is due to the tireless work of people with HIV fighting for their right to dignified health care," the group said in an Instagram post. "This incredible achievement is the result of hard work by groups like the Pitt Men’s Study, the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, and countless other community-led organizations. They struggled against hostile opponents who do not value the lives of people living on the margins, and they created a healthier, more humane region."
Pittsburgh healthcare officials, advocacy groups call for continued efforts combating HIV
Healthcare officials called for continued efforts to end Allegheny's HIV epidemic. This means providing continued access to HIV prevention medications, routine testing, quickly connecting patients to treatment and care, supportive services, providing public health surveillance, offering community education, fighting the stigma and addressing other barriers that might stop people from getting necessary care.
"This success is the result of years of sustained investment and hard work, and it will be lost if we stop now," said Jillian Irwin, Allegheny County Health Department’s medical director and deputy director for clinical services. "We must seize this moment of progress to accelerate our efforts toward zero new HIV transmissions."
Act Up Pittsburgh flagged concerns about continued care for people living with HIV.
"While Act Up is excited to hear the news about declining rates of transmission, it is important to highlight that healthcare for people living with HIV (especially long term survivors) is under attack," the group said. "Without robust care for people living with HIV, we will see not only a rise in transmission, but the unnecessary and cruel deaths of many community members."
Trump administration steps back from efforts to fight HIV globally
The calls for sustained efforts come not only as the county recorded its lowest number of new HIV diagnoses, but also after President Donald Trump has taken aim at efforts to fight HIV globally.
In early 2025, he planned to remove all members of the presidential advisory council on HIV/AIDS with no timeline for replacing them, Reuters reported. He then terminated another federal advisory committee that worked to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. The deployment of support teams, known as Epi-Aids, was put on hold by the federal government as communities in multiple states dealt with HIV outbreaks during the government shutdown in the fall of 2025, according to STAT News.
In December 2025, Trump declined to mark World Aids Day, PBS News reported, and in early 2026, he rescinded $600 million in public health funds to Democratic-led states that used the money in large part for HIV prevention and surveillance, according to The New York Times.
Finch Walker is the Pittsburgh Connect Reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Contact Walker at FWalker@usatodayco.com. Instagram: @finchwalker_. X: @_finchwalker.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pittsburgh sees lowest number of HIV diagnoses since tracking began
