Authors: Godfrey Musuka, Tafadzwa Dzinamarira, Roda Madziva, Helena Herrera, Wafaa El Sadr

The 2025 UNAIDS targets prioritize reaching all subpopulations living with HIV and those at risk for HIV as the only pathway to achieving control of the HIV epidemic. This brought to the fore the importance of addressing the needs of key marginalized groups and placing such communities at the centre of HIV response strategies. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a setback in terms of confronting HIV. With this viewpoint, we offer recommendations not only to protect services within the HIV response amongst key populations but urge the expansion of such services to meet the UNAIDS 2025 targets. Without this, gains in controlling COVID–19 may be achieved at the expense of losses in controlling the spread of HIV, which had been achieved after sustained and resource-intensive actions.