Global HIV infections fall

New HIV infections have been halved across 25 low and middle-income countries over the past decade, a new World AIDS Day report has found.

The joint United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, released the report this week which showed that of the 25 countries, more than half were in sub-Saharan Africa where the majority of infections occur.

On average, the 25 countries reduced new HIV infections more than 50 percent in adults between 2001 and 2011.

Malawi and Nepal made the greatest gains by reducing new infections by about 90 percent.

Although Mexico and Niger delivered the lowest reduction of new HIV infections at just 29 percent.

In the countries with the highest HIV prevalence such as Malawi and and Botswana, the report found infection rates fell by 73 and 71 percent respectively.

“The pace of progress is quickening – what used to take a decade is now being achieved in 24 months,” UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibé said.

“We are scaling up faster and smarter than ever before. It is the proof that with political will and follow through we can reach our shared goals by 2015.”

The report said the most progress that was being made was reducing new HIV infections in children.

It found half of the reductions in new infections over the past two years were among newborn children.

“It is becoming evident that achieving zero new HIV infections in children is possible,” the UNAIDS executive director said.

Anti-retroviral therapies were hailed as a ‘powerful force’ for saving lives with an increase of 63 percent more people accessing treatments over the past two years.

There were more than 500,000 fewer AIDS-related deaths in 2011 than in 2005.

However, UNAIDS estimates there are 6.8 million people who are eligible for treatment that do not have access to treatments.

“UNAIDS will focus on supporting countries to accelerate access to HIV testing and treatment. Now that we know that rapid and massive scale up is possible, we need to do more to reach key populations with crucial HIV services,” Sidibé said.

In Australia, new HIV diagnoses rose by 29 percent between 2003 and 2011, according to the Kirby Institute’s 2012 annual surveillance report into sexually transmitted diseases.

In 2011, there were 1,137 new HIV diagnoses in Australia up from just 786 in 2003.

The report comes as an update and reminder that there is less than three years left to reach the 2015 Millennium Goals and UN Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.

In 2000, world leaders committed to eight core Millennium Goals including halting and reversing new HIV infections around the world by 2015 as well as provide universal access to treatment for HIV-positive people.