34.2 mln people globally living with HIV: UN report

[1]

Around 2.5 million people became newly infected with HIV last year, taking the total to 34.2 million people globally living with the deadly virus, a new United Nations report has said.

With almost 1.7 million people dying of AIDS-related illnesses in 2011, more than 8 million people received antiretroviral therapy during the year, up from 6.6 million people in 2010, an increase of more than 20 per cent.

The report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), 'Together We Will End AIDS', said this has put the international community on track to reach the goal of 15 million people receiving HIV treatment by 2015, as set out by the 2011 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS unanimously adopted by UN Member States.

The report also said that about 3,30,000 children were newly infected with HIV in 2011, almost half the number in 2003, when the number of children acquiring HIV infection peaked at 5,70,000 and 24 per cent lower than the number of children newly infected in 2009 (the baseline year for the Global Plan).

New infections among children have declined dramatically for the second year in a row, it said, adding that of the estimated 1.5 million pregnant women living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries in 2011, 57 per cent received effective antiretroviral drugs to prevent transmission of HIV to their children, up from 48 per cent in 2010.

The UNAIDS said more lives are being saved through antiretroviral therapy as it has added 14 million life-years in low and middle income countries globally since 1995, with more than 9 million of these in sub-Saharan Africa alone.

The estimated number of cumulative life-years added in sub-Saharan Africa more than quadrupled between 2008 and 2011, the UNAIDS report said. The UNAIDS pointed out that as international funding flattens, domestic funding for HIV has exceeded international investments.