End of AIDS in sight,’ says UN report, as new
HIV infection rate continues to fall
With the number of people being diagnosed
with HIV falling, AIDS could one day be
eradicated, experts claim.
A report from the United Nations said this
was thanks to better access to drugs that
can both treat and prevent the incurable
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that
causes AIDS.
This meant the aim of ending the AIDS
epidemic was not ‘merely visionary’ but
‘entirely feasible.’
A researcher in Barcelona working on a
project for a HIV Vaccine: Some eight million
people were being treated with AIDS drugs
by the end of 2011.
Some 34 million people had HIV at the end
of 2011. Worldwide, the number of people
newly infected with the disease, which can
be transmitted via blood and by semen
during sex, is falling.
At 2.5 million, the number of new infections
in 2011 was 20 per cent lower than in
2001.
Deaths from AIDS also fell to 1.7 million in
2011, down from a peak of 2.3 million in
2005 and from 1.8 million in 2010.
The report said this allowed the ‘foundation
to be laid for the eventual end of AIDS.’
In 2012, over 100,000 people are living with
HIV in the UK. Of these, a quarter do not
know they are carrying the virus.
However, sub-Saharan Africa is the most
severely affected region with almost one in
every 20 adults infected, nearly 25 times the
rate in Asia. There are also almost five
million people with HIV in South, South-East
and East Asia combined.
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‘Although AIDS remains one of the world’s
most serious health challenges, global
solidarity in the AIDS response during the
past decade continues to generate
extraordinary health gains,’ the report said.
It said this was due to ‘historic success’ in
bringing HIV programmes to scale,
combined with the emergence of new
combination drugs to prevent people from
becoming HIV infected and from dying from
AIDS.
Since 1995, AIDS drug treatment – known as
antiretroviral therapy – has saved 14 million
life-years in poorer countries, including 9
million in sub-Saharan Africa, the report
said.
Some eight million people were being
treated with AIDS drugs by the end of 2011,
a 20-fold increase since 2003. The U.N. has
set a target to raise that to 15 million people
by 2015.
Scientific studies published in recent years
have shown that getting timely treatment to
those with HIV can also cut the number of
people who become newly infected with the
virus.
UNAIDS said the sharpest declines in new
HIV infections since 2001 were in the
Caribbean and in sub-Saharan Africa –
where new infections were down 25 per
cent in a decade.
Despite this, sub-Saharan Africa still
accounted for 71 per cent of people newly
infected in 2011, underscoring the need to
boost HIV prevention efforts in the region,
UNAIDS said.
HIV trends are also a concern in other
regions.
Since 2001, the number of new HIV
infections in the Middle East and North
Africa was up more than 35 percent from
27,000 to 37,000, it said, and evidence
suggests HIV infections in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia began increasing in the late
2000s after being relatively stable for several
years.http://ireporterstv.co/end-of-aids-in-sight-says-un-report-as-new-hiv-infection-rate-continues-to-fall/
- Daily Mail