UN warns of the losing battle in world AIDS fight

UN officials are saying that their goal of containing the AIDS pandemic by 2015 may now be unrealistic because the spread of the disease is outpacing the efforts of many countries to prevent it.

Peter Piot, the head of the UN campaign to combat AIDS, at a day-long conference, said some progress had been made in containing the disease, including signs of success in Africa and a big increase worldwide in the number of people receiving AIDS counselling and testing.

But he said all efforts to control AIDS were failing in regions in eastern Europe and central America.

Mr Piot says the UN is faced with multiple epidemics and the world is still moving into the globalisation of the AIDS epidemic.

Kofi Annan, the secretary general, had earlier noted that only 12% of the people who need antiretroviral therapies in poorer countries were getting them.

Some success is apparently evident in Africa, with declines in the number of new HIV infections among young people in the capitals of Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia and Uganda, where people are more educated and prevention programmes have started, says Mr Piot.

But according to Piot, the £4.4bn being spent this year to combat the disease has to be doubled annually to acheive success.