PARIS, July 6 (AFP) - Around 4.8 million people, the most ever recorded in a single year, became infected with HIV in 2003, a UN agency said on Tuesday, warning that after Africa, the plum targets for AIDS were now Eastern Europe and Asia.
Some 37.8 million people were living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or AIDS at the end of 2003, and 2.9 million were killed by the disease last year, UNAIDS said. At least 20 million people have died of AIDS since it was first identified in 1981.
"The epidemic shows no sign of weakening its grip on human society," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a foreword to the 230-page document.
"The AIDS crisis continues to deepen in Africa, while new epidemics are growing with alarming speed in Asia and Eastern Europe. No region of the world has been spared."
The report was published ahead of the July 11-16 International AIDS Conference, the top forum on the global AIDS crisis. As many as 20,000 scientists, policymakers and grass-roots activists are expected in Bangkok.
The figures mark the second time in seven months that UNAIDS has reduced its estimates of the number of AIDS victims.
Last November, an update it published with the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggested that at the end of 2003, 40 million would be living with HIV/AIDS, five million would become newly infected that year, and AIDS would claim three million lives.
But, UNAIDS said, these adjustments are driven by better reporting by countries, especially in Africa, and by new statistical tools that give a far more accurate picture.
"This is good news in that it means that fewer people than previously thought will suffer the horror of AIDS, but it should not be cause for undue optimism," the agency said.
"For Africa, AIDS remains a catastrophe, and unrelenting commitment is required to turn the epidemic around and alleviate its tremendous impact."
Twenty-five million out of the 38 million people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa, which is also home to 12 million children who have lost one or both parents to the disease.
The orphan army will swell to 18 million by 2010 on present trends, creating vast social problems, UNAIDS said.
It made a despairing plea for action in Eastern Europe and Asia, portraying them as highly vulnerable regions where there was tragically little political leadership to combat AIDS.
Ignorance and stigma could help the virus to leap out of marginalised demographic pools and into the population's mainstream.
As for tackling the pandemic, UNAIDS made these points:
- FUNDING: Progress has been good, but much more is needed.
Contributions for the war on AIDS leapt from 300 million dollars in 1996 to 1.7 billion in 2002, the figure last year was 4.7 billion and, says UNAIDS chief Peter Piot, more is expected this year.
However, "this amount is less than half of what is required by 2005, and only a quarter of what will be required by 2007 to mount a comprehensive response to AIDS in low- and middle-income countries," UNAIDS says.
And it attacks "serious bottlenecks" such as red tape and slow transfer of funds that hold the money up or prevent it from being spent effectively in the worst-hit countries.
- DRUG PRICES: The news is excellent, for antiretrovirals have at last fallen "dramatically" in price.
In 2000, the typical cost of a one-year course was 10,000-12,000 dollars per person on the world market. Prices then fell sharply in developing countries, thanks to differential price by drugs majors and copycat drugs called generics. Today, thanks to a deal negotiated by the Clinton Foundation, the poorest countries can buy the drugs for as little as 140 dollars per person per year.
- SCALING UP CARE: The race is on to save between five and six million people who live in poor countries and who will die of AIDS in the next two years if they fail to get antiretroviral drugs.
So far, less than one in 10 are receiving this therapy. The report stresses the need to build infrastructure and train personnel to help meet the goal.
"Achieving these ambitious targets requires overcoming major implementation obstacles," says the document.
"The challenges are enormous: the health services of many countries have been badly undermined by inadequate investment over decades, and by the burden of AIDS itself."
The WHO target, Three by Five, aims to provide access to three million people in the developing world by the end of 2005. So far, the tally is "more than 400,000," says UNAIDS.
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