| Global AIDS epidemic rampant: kills more people this year than ever before at 12:29 on November 25, 2003, EST. |
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LONDON (AP) - International efforts to control the spread of HIV/AIDS are failing, with more people dying from the disease this year than ever before and as many as 46 million people around the world now living with the virus, says a UN report released Tuesday. The worldwide epidemic has killed more than three million people this year and infected five million more with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, said UNAIDS, the UN agency responsible for co-ordinating global efforts to fight AIDS. The report said the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa remains rampant while epidemic-sized outbreaks are growing in China, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and several central Asian republics. "This year, more people became infected with HIV than any previous year before and more people then ever died from AIDS," said UNAIDS executive director Dr. Peter Piot. The global response to the crisis has expanded significantly in recent years through more spending on anti-retroviral medication and on education, UNAIDS said. "However, it is quite clear that our current global efforts remain entirely inadequate for an epidemic that is continuing to spiral out of control," Piot said. "AIDS is tightening its grip on southern Africa and threatening other regions of the world." Kistan Shoultz, the UNAIDS co-ordinator in Kenya, said "most" African governments need to do more to fight AIDS. "This requires huge resources, huge energy levels, far expanded efforts," Shoultz said in Nairobi. Anti-retroviral treatment coverage remains dismal in sub-Saharan Africa overall and basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS remains disturbingly low in many countries, especially among women, the report said. "This is an epidemic that at the start was a white, middle-class gay man's disease," Piot said. "Today, if you use a stereotype, the face of AIDS is a young woman from Africa." Voluntary counselling and testing services are virtually absent in many countries and only one per cent of pregnant women in severely affected countries have access to services aimed at preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission, the report said. Dr. Jack Chow, who heads the World Health Organization's AIDS campaign, said the WHO is focusing on its so-call three-by-five initiative, which aims to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to three million people worldwide by the end of 2005. Piot said there was some positive news in the report, with several countries successfully combating the spread of the disease. For example, Uganda marked its 12th consecutive year of reduced HIV infections. The report was released ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. - On the Web: UNAIDS: unaids.org/en/default.asp JANE WARDELL |
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