Slight Aids death decline
2008-07-29 21:33
Special Report
The South African government has announced a joint venture to reduce the cost of anti-retroviral drugs with a Swiss company.
Washington - The numbers of people dying
of Aids and becoming infected with the virus that causes it
have dropped modestly in recent years amid intensified global
efforts to fight the disease, a UN agency said on Tuesday.
About 33 million people globally were infected with the
human immunodeficiency virus in 2007 - most in Africa, south
of the Sahara - down from 33.2 million in 2006, the
annual United Nations report on the Aids pandemic said.
The number of Aids deaths fell for the second straight
year, with an estimated 2 million people succumbing to the
disease in 2007, according to the report by UNAIDS. Aids deaths
have increased steadily since the disease was first
identified in the early 1980s.
Infections have fallen
UNAIDS reported last year that 2.1 million people died of
Aids in 2006.
The number of people newly infected with HIV, which ravages
the immune system, fell to 2.7 million in 2007 from 3 million
in 2001, the report said.
Sub-Saharan Africa remained the part of the world most
heavily impacted by Aids, with 67% of all people
infected with HIV and 72% of deaths occurring in the
impoverished region, according to the report.
It said the number of new HIV infections has fallen
in several countries, but rates of new HIV infections are
rising in many countries including China, Indonesia, Kenya,
Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam.
HIV infections also are increasing in countries like
Germany, Britain and Australia, the report said.
"A six-fold increase in financing for HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries (from) 2001-2007 is beginning to bear fruit, as gains in lowering the number of Aids deaths and preventing new infections are apparent in many countries," according to the report.
Approved a large expansion
"Progress remains uneven, however, and the epidemic's future is still uncertain, underscoring the need for intensified action to move towards universal access to HIV
prevention, treatment, care and support," said the report,
launched ahead of an international Aids conference in Mexico
next week.
The report was released five days after the US Congress
approved a large expansion of a programme to fight Aids and other diseases in Africa and other parts of the world, sending it to President George W Bush to sign it into law.
The measure calls for $48bn over the next five years
to help treat and prevent Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.
- Reuters