Deaths from AIDS fell 22 percent in the past five years

Geneva, 30 nov (EFE).-deaths from AIDS fell 22 per cent in the past five years, period in which the number of people infected with the HIV virus fell by 15%, according to a report released today so jointly by several agencies of the United Nations

The “report on the response Global to HIV/AIDS”, produced by the World Health Organization (who), UNICEF and UNAIDS, stressed the need to strengthen the support policies for the prevention and treatment of the disease to maintain this trend positive.

“The world has cost him 10 years achieving this momentum”, she said in a press conference Gottfried Hirnschall, director of the Department of the who HIV.

“At the moment there is a very real of the epidemic, to anticipate chance but this can be achieved only supporting and accelerating the momentum over the next decade and beyond,” added the head of the who.

These agencies based their optimism on innovations and scientific progress in the fight against HIV, but warn that it will be necessary to apply them quickly so that they are not affected by the economic crisis International.

The report highlights concrete achievements, such as improving access to testing of the HIV/AIDS in Africa, which has enabled to reach 61 per cent of pregnant women in the East and South of the continent, 14% more than in the year 2005.

Has been also that 48 per cent of infected pregnant women receive an effective medication to prevent transmission to the baby and that 6.6 million people carry the virus in poor countries and in development (where estimated 14.2 million affected) currently receive antiretroviral therapy (ART).

The authors also have an impact on the economic impact that this represents and estimated at $ 34 billion potential benefits until 2020 by improving activity and productivity in the countries most affected by the disease.

“2011 is still a year in which change the rules of the game.” “With new scientific advances, unprecedented political leadership and the steady progress of the response to AIDS, countries have the opportunity to seize the moment and go one step further, said Paul Lay, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS.

Despite good data from the report, the authors point out that there is much to be done, that more than half of those needing an antiretroviral therapy in low income countries still do not have access to this treatment and, in many cases, are not even aware that they are HIV-positive.

In many countries is not paid due attention to higher risk groups, which generally remain out of prevention and treatment programs: teens of female drug addicts injecting intravenously, homosexual, transgendered men, prostitutes, prisoners and emigrants.

Worldwide, 64% of the population aged between 15 and 24 infected with AIDS are women, a rate that in the case of sub-Saharan Africa increases to 71 per cent, due to the fact that prevention strategies are not coming to this region.

There is also a marginalization of key groups, such as drug users in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which represent more than 60% of HIV-positive, but amounting to only 22% of people with access to antiretroviral therapy.

Despite the improvements to prevent transmission from mothers to children, some 3.4 million children live in the world with HIV, a population group that also suffer treatment discriminatory.

Developing and underdeveloped countries of development, one of four children with the AIDS virus only received treatment in 2010, with one of every two adults.

“We note that progress for children is slower,” said Leila Pakkala, Director of the UNICEF Office in Geneva, which considered “alarming” the level of coverage for the child.

By region, in Africa there were 1.9 million new infected in the last five years, which puts the total number of carriers of HIV on the continent in 22.9 million.

In Asia there was stabilization of the epidemic, with 4.8 million infected (49% in the India), as in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the figures stabilized around 1.7 million (1.5 million in Latin America and 200,000 in the Caribbean).

The most dramatic increase occurred in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where new infections have increased by 250% over the last decade, with 90% of the cases in Russia and Ukraine.

In Middle East and North Africa there were 59,000 people infected by 2010, an increase of 36% over 2009.

Photograph of Sunday 27 November, which shows a patient with AIDS while receiving medicines in the Buddhist temple Wat Phra Baat Namphu, renowned for his treatment to the patients with HIV positive and AIDS, in the province of Lopburi (Thailand). EFE/file