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 "More than ever before, there is hope that ending AIDS is possible.
However, a business-as-usual approach or simply sustaining the AIDS
response at its current pace cannot end the epidemic," the U.N. AIDS
program UNAIDS said in a global report issued ahead of an AIDS
conference in Melbourne, Australia next week.
It said the number of people infected with HIV was stabilizing at
around 35 million worldwide. The epidemic had killed some 39 million
of the 78 million people it has affected since it began in the
1980s.
"The AIDS epidemic can be ended in every region, every country, in
every location, in every population and every community," Michel
Sidibe, the director of UNAIDS, said in the report. "There are
multiple reasons why there is hope and conviction about this goal."
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS can be
transmitted via blood, breast milk and by semen during sex, but can
be kept in check with cocktails of drugs known as antiretroviral
therapy or ART.
UNAIDS said that at the end of 2013, some 12.9 million HIV positive
people had access to antiretroviral therapy - a dramatic improvement
on the 10 million who were on treatment just one year earlier and
the only 5 million who were getting AIDS drugs in 2010.
Since 2001, new HIV infections have fallen by 38 percent, it said.
AIDS deaths have fallen 35 percent since a peak in 2005.
"The world has witnessed extraordinary changes in the AIDS
landscape. There have been more achievements in the past five years
than in the preceding 23 years," the report said.
The U.N. report said ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 would mean the
spread of HIV was being controlled or contained, and that the impact
of the virus in societies and in people's lives had been reduced by
significant declines in ill health, stigma, deaths and the number of
AIDS orphans.
"It means increased life expectancy, unconditional acceptance of
people's diversity and rights, and increased productivity and
reduced costs as the impact diminishes."
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According to UNAIDS, $19.1 billion was available from all sources
for the AIDS response in 2013, and the estimated annual need by 2015
is currently between $22 billion and $24 billion.
Sidibe said the international community should seize the opportunity
to turn the epidemic around.
"We have a fragile five-year window to build on the rapid results
that been made," he said. "If we accelerate all HIV scale-up by
2020, we will be on track to end the epidemic by 2030. If not, we
risk significantly increasing the time it would take - adding a
decade, if not more."
He said controlling the epidemic by 2030 would avert 18 million new
HIV infections and 11.2 million AIDS deaths between 2013 and 2030.
In 2011, U.N. member states agreed to a target of getting HIV
treatment to 15 million people by 2015. As countries scaled up
treatment coverage, and evidence showed how treating HIV early also
reduces its spread, the World Health Organization (WHO) set new
guidelines last year, expanding the number of people needing
treatment by more than 10 million.
Jennifer Cohn, medical director of the access campaign for the
charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said millions of HIV
positive people still do not get the drugs they needed.
"Providing life-saving HIV treatment to nearly 12 million people in
the developing world is a significant achievement, but more than
half of people in need still do not have access," she said. "We know
that early treatment helps prevent transmission of HIV and keeps
people healthy; we need to respond to HIV in all contexts and make
treatment accessible to everyone in need as soon as possible."
(Reporting by Kate Kelland, additional reporting by Stephanie
Nebehay in Geneva, editing by Ralph Boulton)
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