In Cambodia, HIV still infects eight young people every week
In June, the kingdom became the first country in Asia and the Pacific to reach the global HIV treatment targets. Yet almost one in two new infections involves someone aged 15 to 24. And what young people know about the virus is slipping.
Eight. That is the average number of Cambodians aged 15 to 24 who contract HIV each week. Over a year, it comes to just over four hundred young people. The figure matches the latest national estimates. In 2025, the country recorded 958 new infections. Around 43% of them were in this age group.
The timing is awkward. On 12 June, the Cambodian government and UNAIDS jointly announced that the kingdom had met the so-called "95-95-95" targets. In practice, 95% of people living with HIV know their status. Of those, 95% are on antiretroviral treatment. And 95% of people on treatment have a suppressed viral load, which means they cannot pass the virus on. No other country in the region has managed it.
It is not a first for Phnom Penh. In 2017, Cambodia was already one of only seven countries in the world to reach the earlier targets, set at 90%, three years ahead of schedule.
Good at treatment, weaker on prevention
The paradox is only on the surface. Cambodia’s health system knows how to diagnose people and keep them on treatment. It finds it harder to stop new infections.
The curve has still fallen a long way. According to estimates published in 2023, new infections had dropped by 91% since the epidemic peaked in 1996. But the decline is slowing. And not everyone is benefiting.
The 2025 figures show an epidemic that is now concentrated. Some 84% of new infections involve so-called "key populations" and their partners. While infections are falling in most groups, they are rising among men who have sex with men and among transgender women. Many of them are young.
As early as 2023, Patricia Ongpin, head of the UNAIDS office for Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia, pointed to this shift. Infections were falling sharply among women but rising among men, particularly young gay men.
The national goal remains ambitious: fewer than 250 new infections a year by 2030.
A less informed generation
The most worrying decline comes down to two numbers. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), only 23% of 15-to-24-year-olds now have comprehensive knowledge of HIV. In 2014, the figure was 38%.
These young people did not live through the years when AIDS was devastating the country. For many, the virus has become a distant illness. UN agencies keep making the point: a lack of information about HIV and how to prevent it leaves young people more exposed, both to HIV and to other sexually transmitted infections.
Chhum Vy is an outreach worker with the NGO Men’s Health Cambodia. He hands out condoms, lubricant and self-test kits at group sessions. He sees it first-hand: despite awareness work online, by day and by night, the rate remains high, especially among LGBT people.
Places young people will walk into
The challenge is getting young people through the door. For many, the obstacle is not access to a test. It is how others will look at them.
At the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STDs (NCHADS) in Phnom Penh, one clinic opens at weekends. Sovann Reatrey works there as a counsellor. She says men who have sex with men and women working in the entertainment sector prefer those slots. It is quieter. No one sees them. "First and foremost, we don’t discriminate against them," she says. That trust is what keeps them coming back.
This is what "youth-friendly" spaces are about. Safe places, free of judgement, where a teenager can ask a question without fear of being recognised or lectured. Cambodia already has recent tools at hand: long-acting PrEP, self-testing, and treatment dispensed for several months at a time. Peer-led counselling and testing have also proved effective with key populations.
But stigma and discrimination still keep some people from the services they need, the authorities acknowledge.
After the donors
The challenge is also financial. External funding is shrinking. Cambodia is drawing up a sustainability plan. It calls for more public money and for HIV services to be folded into primary health care and universal health coverage. The country wants to move from temporary, donor-led projects to a system run by the state.
Ieng Mouly, Senior Minister and Chair of the National AIDS Authority, calls the milestone "a source of national pride" that "also comes with responsibility". Health Minister Chheang Ra stresses the need to "reach the last miles", with services tailored to communities and available without discrimination.
To meet the 2030 target, the country will need to get below five new infections a week. Across all age groups.
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