New worldwide high for AIDS numbers

A new report says that worldwide the number of AIDS cases has reached record levels, with more than 40 million people now living with the disease.

The AIDS Epidemic Update 2005, a report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organisation, says that there are now 40.3 million cases compared with 37.5 million in 2003.

This year alone at least three million people died from the related diseases, including an estimated 500,000 children and there are an extra five million new infections.

Adult infections decreased in some countries but the overall trend was up and the sharpest increases in HIV infections were in eastern Europe, central Asia and east Asia.

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the most affected region, with 64 per cent of new infections occurring there.

However, there has been progress in Kenya, Zimbabwe and in some Caribbean countries.

Nick Partridge, the chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, says the HIV epidemic is not being contained, but the decrease in new infections in some communities shows the fight can be won with resources, public pressure and political action.

The Health Protection Agency will publish the latest UK trends later this week.

Previous figures have shown that there are an estimated 60,000 people living with HIV in Britain and about 27 per cent of these are thought to be undiagnosed.

There were 7,258 new diagnoses in the UK in 2004, compared with 3,499 in 2000.

Apparently one of the reasons for this rise is the increased rate of testing but most of the increase was due to a steep rise in heterosexually-acquired HIV infections, about 80 per cent of which were contracted in high-prevalence countries.

http://www.unaids.org/epi2005/index.html