New US HIV research plan: priority shifts to MAGA-aligned implementation studies
5 October 2026. Related: Early access, Treatment strategies, Guidelines, Activism & advocacy.
Simon Collins, HIV i-Base
On 2 October 2026, the US NIH Office of AIDS Research released a 35-page report outlining a roadmap for the NIH-funded research programme until 2030. [1, 2]
As the US research budget is still so much larger than any other country, this programme has international relevance, especially with US Government policy reducing support for international and global research since 2025.
Most significantly, the plan prioritises implementation research, actively moving away from basic and clinical science.
This could be interpreted as no longer needing to continue to invest in pipeline compounds, vaccine research or clinical trials because the current drugs are good enough.
An infographic at the start of the report shows that out of every 100 people living with HIV in the US, 13 don’t know their HIV status, 34 are not engaged in care (and therefore not on ART) and 43 are not virally suppressed.
This seems to deliberately avoid using UNAIDS 95:95:95 targets which would work out as 87:75:76, significantly lower than many African countries with much larger HIV epidemics.
The infographic is based on 2022 data, the latest available.
comment
This is a difficult document to interpret but the context is that it further politicises US research. Although it could have been worse, it is significantly different in language, tone and even history to the previous plan for 2021-2025. For example, references to specific key populations are gone, as is the historical importance of PEPFAR. [3]
Even though the process to prepare this plan started in 2024 and is presented as ‘reflecting’ the contributions of a wide range of experts and researchers, including ‘community’, it was effectively produced under the influence of Jay Bhattacharya, the Trump-appointed Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to align with America First policies. The preface by Bhattacharya stresses that research will now follow MAGA ideology to benefit the health of all Americans.
This is acknowledged again on page 28 detailing that recommendations were ‘streamlined [and] reviewed for alignment with administration priorities’ and in a tiny footnote, the plan ‘underwent a thorough review and clearance process from Summer 2025 to Summer 2026 prior to release’.
Funding is beyond the remit of this report, but the outcomes from the next seven-year funding review that are due in November 2027 will show how badly future HIV research will be affected.
STOP PRESS: As this article was published, the heads of the four major US HIV trials networks were told NOT to start any studies that were about to enrol and would not be completed by November 2027 when the current round of research funding ends. This followed weeks of delays in launching the process for researchers to apply for funding. This is confirmed in an article in the New York Times 7 October 2026, within a week of the OAR funding plan. [4]
Reference
- NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR). Announcing publication of the FY2026-2030 NIH Strategic Plan for HIV and HIV-Related Research. (2 October 2026).
https://www.hiv.gov/blog/announcing-publication-of-the-fy-2026-2030-nih-strategic-plan-for-hiv-and-hiv-related-research - US NIH Office of AIDS Research. FY 2026–2030 NIH Strategic Plan for HIV and HIV-Related Research. (5 October 2026).
https://oar.nih.gov/hiv-policy-and-research/strategic-plan (web page)
https://oar.nih.gov/sites/g/files/mnhszr366/files/NIH-HIV-Strategic-Plan-508.pdf (PDF file) - NIH OAR. Strategic Plan for HIV and HIV-Related Research (FY) 2021–2025.
https://oar.nih.gov/hiv-policy-and-research/strategic-plan/archive (archive page)
https://www.oar.nih.gov/sites/g/files/mnhszr366/files/NIH_StrategicPlan_FY2021-2025.pdf (PDF) - New York Times. H.I.V. Research Networks Face Uncertain Future Amid Funding Delays. (7 October 2026).
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/health/hiv-research-delay-cuts-hhs-nih.html