Progress has been made in tackling HIV infection in key African countries, but a record five million people were infected worldwide in 2005 to take the estimated total beyond 40 million for the first time, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.
The five million cases recorded in 2005 was 鈥渢he highest number of people newly infected in a year since the beginning of the epidemic鈥�, said Peter Piot, executive director of the UNAIDS programme. The AIDS epidemic claimed 3.1 million lives during the year, more than half a million of them children, the report said.
鈥淭he total number of people living with HIV reached its highest level, an estimated 40.3 million,鈥� up from 37.5 million in 2003, said the AIDS Epidemic Update 2005 report, released in New Delhi, India. The report notes that 鈥渢he overall number of people living with HIV continued to increase in all regions of the world, except the Caribbean鈥�.
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The survey warned that growing epidemics were underway in eastern Europe, Central Asia and east Asia and that the spread of HIV/AIDS was intensifying in southern Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 64% of the new infections, taking the number of cases there to an estimated 25.8 million.
Hopeful signs
鈥淗IV stigma and the resulting actual or feared discrimination have proven to be perhaps the most difficult obstacles to effective HIV prevention,鈥� the report said, and these factors 鈥渃reated an ideal climate鈥� for the spread of the epidemic.
Piot said that of people living with HIV, 鈥渙nly one in 10 has been tested and knows that he or she is infected [and only] one in 10 Africans and one in seven Asians in need of anti-retroviral drug treatments were receiving them in mid-2005鈥�.
But in some parts of Africa there were 鈥渉opeful signs鈥� of declining national HIV prevalence, the report said. Infection levels were dropping in Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya.
HIV infection rates have also fallen recently in several countries. 鈥淭his news is especially encouraging because these countries are in regions most severely affected by AIDS 鈥� sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean,鈥� Piot said.
Mother-to-child transmission
鈥淏ut the reality is that the AIDS epidemic continues to outstrip global and national efforts to contain it. It is clear that a rapid increase in the scale and scope of HIV prevention programmes is urgently needed,鈥� he said. 鈥淎t this juncture, where success is within sight, we have to intensify our efforts more than ever before.鈥�
Mother-to-child transmission was one of the causes for new infections in sub-Saharan Africa, the report said, predicting about 35% of all children born to HIV-positive women would contract the virus. Levels of knowledge about safe sex and HIV remain low in many countries, especially in many sub-Saharan nations, and notably in Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda.
Two-thirds or more of all women between 15 and 24 years of age lacked comprehensive knowledge of how HIV is transmitted, the report said. A large poll in the Philippines in 2003 found more than 90% of respondents believed that HIV could be transmitted by sharing a meal with an infected person.
The report said access to cheaper antiretroviral drugs had improved markedly since 2003, with more than one million people in low-and middle-income countries living longer and having better lives. 鈥淭reatment coverage in [鈥 Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Cuba now exceeds 80%,鈥� the report said, adding that better access to anti-retrovirals had averted an estimated 250,000 to 350,000 deaths.
鈥淲e can now see the clear benefit of scaling up HIV treatment and prevention together and not as isolated interventions,鈥� said the World Health Organization鈥檚 director-general, Lee Jong-wook.
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