HIV infection rate stable for first time

By Jonathan Fowler

NEW YORK: The incidence of new HIV infections appears to
have stabilized for the first time in the 25-year history
of AIDS, although the global pandemic will still have a
deep, long-term impact, a new UN report said Tuesday.

While the world is at last making progress against the
disease, thanks to a massive increase in spending, better
access to drugs and growing awareness, huge problems
remain, the UN agen­cy coordinating the fight against
HIV/AIDS warned.

In its report, issued on the eve of a UN General Assembly
session on the disease, UNAIDS underlined the dangers
caused by prevention programs which it said in many
countries were still far off-target and inaccessible to
millions of people.

“Overall, the HIV incidence rate [the proportion of people
who have become infected with HIV] is believed to have
peaked in the late 1990s and to have stabilized
subsequently, notwithstanding increasing incidence in
several countries,” UNAIDS said in the latest “Report on
the Global AIDS Epidemic.”

However, the agency warned that there was no room for
complacency.

AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was
first recognized in 1981, UNAIDS said, while the HIV virus
which precedes the disease infected 65 million people over
the same period.

Last year AIDS claimed the lives of 2.8 million people and
over 4.1 million were newly infected with HIV, according
to the report.

In 2003 the UN estimated that 4.8 million were newly
infected with HIV.

An estimated 38.6 million people were living with HIV at
the end of 2005, the vast majority of whom were unaware
that they were infected, it added.