TEHRAN – The Islamic Republic of Iran, the People’s Republic of China, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) recently celebrated the successful completion of a pathfinder HIV project, designed to bridge the HIV testing gap in Iran’s national HIV response and generate alternative solutions to ensure a resilient national HIV testing programme in the years to come.

This people-centred project combined supply chain, capacity development, and knowledge exchange solutions to fill a gap in the testing pillar of Iran’s national HIV response. The project’s USD 655,000 budget was donated by the China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges (CICETE), and it was implemented by UNAIDS in close collaboration with the Centre for Communicable Diseases Control (CCDC) of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Iran, the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP), with technical support from the China National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention (NCAIDS).

The project delivered 570 thousand rapid HIV diagnostic tests to the Ministry of Health, provided capacity development on their utilization, and facilitated knowledge and experience sharing between China and Iran with a view to expanding domestic HIV diagnosis capacity.

In an event in December 2025 in Tehran, representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and of Health & Medical Education (MOHME) of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, and the United Nations in I.R Iran came together with members of the Executive Committee of the National AIDS Council and community representatives to celebrate the achievements of this project and to declare their commitment to deeper cooperation in the public health domain.

All parties expressed firm commitment to further their development collaboration in this field, to ensure continuity of the HIV programme during this period of funding uncertainty in support of the national HIV response, in line with their shared goal of ending AIDS.

UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations—UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO, and the World Bank—and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.