Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Massive Scale Up in HIV Treatments Access

"We've seen massive access to HIV treatment who had a huge impact on the lives of people around the world," Michel Sidibe, Executive Director of UNAIDS, told the press as a new report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS) was released in Berlin and Geneva Yesterday, November 21.
Due to significant expansion, even during the financial crisis, about 50% of people who are eligible for antiretroviral therapy now have access to this lifesaving treatments for HIV.
"Even in very difficult financial crisis, the country to produce results in the AIDS response," said Michel Sidibe.
A new report shows that 2011 was a "game changing" year to fight AIDS. As with unprecedented results, there is tremendous progress in science and the political leadership, it says.
UNAIDS World AIDS Day 2011 Report shows HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths fell to their lowest level since the peak of the epidemic:

    
* New cases of HIV infection decreased by 21% since 1997.
    
* Deaths of AIDS-related diseases has decreased by 21% since 2005.
According to estimates by UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) show that 6.6 million (47%) of the 14.2 million people eligible for treatment in low-and middle-income countries access to antiretroviral therapy in 2010. This represents an increase of 1.35 million in 2009.
The report also said there were signs that HIV treatment begins to reduce the number of new HIV infections is essential and prevent 2.5 million deaths in 1995.
People living with HIV are living longer and AIDS-related deaths fell by rescue effects of therapy. Estimates in the report show that at the end of 2010 there were approximately:

    
* 34 million people living with HIV.
    
* 2.7 million new HIV infections each year.
    
* 1.8 million deaths from AIDS-related illnesses this year.
Prevention of HIV seems to be making significant progress, the fact that new HIV infections were significantly reduced or stabilized in most regions of the world.
For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of new HIV infections fell by more than 26% from the peak of the epidemic in 1997. And in South Africa, a country with the highest level of new HIV infections in the world, the fall from peak to third.
The number of new HIV infections are also reductions in other parts of the world, such as the Caribbean, where the levels of one-third less than in 2001, South and Southeast Asia, where rates have fallen more than 40% since 2006, and in India where they fell by 56%.
But in some parts of the world, the number of new HIV infections is still rising. These include Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Oceania and the Middle East and North Africa. Elsewhere, it has remained stable.
The report says that it is not just access to treatment, which causes the rate of infection of new HIV cases drop, but also a change in sexual behavior, especially among young people, who tend to have fewer sexual partners, condom use, more and wait longer to become sexually active than their parents' generation.

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