GENEVA, Nov 24 (AFP) - Some 5.3 million people became infected with HIV in 2000 bringing to 36.1 million the number of people estimated to have HIV or AIDS worldwide by the end of this year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNAIDS.

By the end of 2000, the illness will have claimed the lives of an estimated 21.8 million adults and children since the beginning of the epidemic about 20 years ago, the two Geneva-based United Nations bodies said Friday.

Sub-Saharan Africa is still the hardest hit region, accounting for 72 percent of the 5.3 million new HIV infections, 70 percent of people with HIV/AIDS and 80 percent of AIDS deaths in the past year.

The figures, published in the WHO's weekly epidemiological record, also show HIV infections are now nearly equally distributed between men and women. Deaths in women continue to rise however, representing an estimated 52 percent of adult HIV deaths in 2000.

However, for the first time the estimated number of new infections in sub-Saharan Africa appears to have stabilised, the WHO said.

The 3.8 million new infections in sub-Saharan Africa in 2000 compare to a total of four million during 1999.

In North Africa and the Middle East, data show an estimated increase of 80,000 new infections for the year bringing to 400,000 the regional total of adults and children with HIV/AIDS.

Asia and the Pacific are estimated to have 6.4 million people living with HIV at the end of 2000, with most infections continuing to be concentrated in a few large countries of south and south east Asia.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 1.8 million people are believed to have the HIV virus at the end of 2000 but, said the WHO, anti-retroviral therapy has helped reduce AIDS mortality in some countries.

Meanwhile, eastern Europe and Central Asia have continued to see some of the sharpest increases in HIV infections with an estimated 250,000 people newly infected in 2000, bringing to 700,000 the regional total of people with HIV or AIDS.

Thousands of people continue to become infected in the industrialised countries of North America and western Europe. Some 920,000 people live with HIV/AIDS in North America, while in western Europe the figure is 540,000.

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