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4.9 mln new HIV cases in 2005, New Delhi: The UNAIDS on Monday said that almost five million people were infected by HIV globally in 2005, the highest jump since the first reported case in 1981, taking the number of people afflicted with the virus to a record 40.3 million. Peter Piot, executive director of United Nations' UNAIDS, said that five million new infections have been fuelled by HIV's continuing rampage in Sub-Saharan Africa and a spike in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. "AIDS continues its expansion. Five million people got infected this year. More people died as well. This indicates that without a correct prevention message and activity, it won't be possible to reach to those, who need help. More deaths also mean that not everybody who should have access to anti-retrovirus therapy has access to that," said Piot after unveiling the 2005 global AIDS epidemic update of UNAIDS here. Millions died of AIDS this year: More than 3.1 million people have died this year from AIDS including 570,000 children -- far more than the toll from all natural disasters since last December's tsunami. Southern Africa, including South Africa -- which has the highest number of cases at more than five million -- continues to be worst-hit. In some countries, however, the infection rates had fallen owing to counselling and information campaigns, according to UNAIDS. "Several countries in the world that have the problem of HIV, in other words, the new infections are going down. For the first time, in a long time, we see in a number of countries that investments in HIV prevention are now bearing fruit," he said. East African countries such as Uganda and, to a lesser extent Kenya had some success in fighting HIV/AIDS infections in pregnant women, with rates dipping steeply due to changes in sexual behaviour, he added. Focusing on the upward spiral in South Africa, where the infection rate among pregnant women touched 29.5 percent in 2005, the report said that deaths of people aged between 25 and 44 had more than doubled. Other southern Africa countries such as Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland had high rates of HIV among pregnant women -- more than 30 percent and sign of growth rates stabilsing, adding that sub-Saharan Africa with 25.8 million HIV-positive people, was still home to 64 percent of the world's total HIV cases. UNAIDS said the number of HIV-positive women reached 17.5 million this year, more than million more than in 2003. "In many countries, marriage, and women's own fidelity are not enough to protect them against HIV infection," the report said, adding, that India, with 5.1 million HIV-positive people, many new infections were being reported in married women infected by their husbands after visiting sex workers. In Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Russian Federation also, infections due to unprotected sex was rising after the initial momentum given to the epidemic by injecting drug use. The UNAIDS report said a total of 1.6 million were living with HIV in 2005 in the region, up from 1.3 million in 2003 and AIDS deaths soared to 62,000 in 2005 from 36,000 in 2003. Piot however, said that the outlook on accessibility of anti- retroviral drugs for people in developing nations is looking brighter, as because of the "recent treatment scale-up since the end of 2003, between 250,000 and 350,000 deaths were averted in 2005," The UNAIDS report further said that though in countries like Argentina, Cuba, Brazil and Chile, the treatment coverage exceeded 80 percent, too many HIV-positive people were missing out, with just one in 10 Africans and one in seven Asians needing anti- retroviral treatment, actually receiving it. The knowledge about HIV transmission in many parts of the world, including southern Africa, was extremely low. |
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