TORONTO, Aug 16, 2006 (AFP) - Antiretroviral drugs are now reaching 1.65 million people in poor countries who are badly infected with HIV, equal to almost one in four of those in need, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said here Wednesday.
"Of the global total of 38.6 million persons living with HIV, approximately 6.8 million in low- and middle-income countries currently require antiretroviral therapy (ART)," Kevin De Cock, director of the WHO's Department of HIV/AIDS, told the 16th International AIDS Conference.
"(The) WHO estimates by the end of June 2006, some 1.65 million persons in need were accessing ART, for an overall coverage of 24 percent."
By region, coverage ranged from only five percent in North Africa and the Middle East to 13 percent in Eastern Europe and 75 percent in the Caribbean and Latin America.
"While the 76 percent still untreated represents a predominantly empty glass, trends in scaleup have nonetheless been encouraging in the areas with the most people with HIV," De Cock noted.
"In sub-Saharan Africa, over a million people are now on treatment, a 10-fold increase since December 2003, (with) Africans now representing 63 percent of all treatment recipients."
He added: "In Asia, a more than three-fold increase has occurred in two years. At least 20 low- and middle-income countries are treating over 50 percent of their citizens in need."
ART, which emerged a decade ago, is the famous "cocktail" of powerful drugs that prevent the AIDS virus from hijacking the CD4 immune cell and then replicating, leaving in its wake a wrecked cell.
Beyond a certain threshold of infection, the immune defences become so badly damaged that the body is exposed to opportunistic diseases such as tuberculosis and pneumonia.
Antiretrovirals suppress the virus level to manageable levels, but are not a cure.
Two-thirds of the global total of people living with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Even though antiretrovirals first emerged in 1996, it took seven years before the lifeline drugs began to arrive in Africa in significant volumes because of the high price.
The price has since plummeted and an influx of funds has helped set up networks to distribute them.
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