AIDS ‘spreading to every single corner of the planet’

THE global battle against HIV/Aids shows no sign of letting up a quarter-century into an epidemic that has claimed 25 million lives, the head of the UN’s HIV/AIDSjoint programme warned yesterday.

“I think we will see a further globalisation of the epidemic spreading to every single corner of the planet,” UNAIDS head Dr Peter Piot said.

New data released yesterday shows that India now has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS.

With an estimated 5.7 million infections, it has surpassed South Africa’s 5.5 million.

Dr Piot said Eastern Europe and Central Asia have become a new front where infections have expanded as people have access to more money and have started injecting drug.

“Absolute numbers are still low, but when you look at the spread of the disease, we know from experience where that leads,” Dr Piot said. “The Middle East is the last part of the world where HIV is not spreading rapidly.”

But the epidemic still remains at its worst in sub-Saharan Africa, where per capita rates in several countries continue to climb — a third of adults were infected in Swaziland in 2005.

UNAIDS yesterday launched a 630-page report that takes stock of where the world currently stands with nearly 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS.

It documents countries’ progress and failures, and projects what must happen to keep some regions from experiencing disaster.

The report was released a day ahead of a High Level Meeting on AIDS in New York, a week prior to the 25th anniversary of the first documented AIDS cases on June 5, 1981.

“It won’t go away one fine day, and then we wake up and say, ‘Oh, AIDS is gone’,” Dr Piot said in a recent interview from Geneva. “I think we have to start thinking about looking at the next generations. There’s an increasing diversity in how the epidemic looks.”

Dr Piot said one of the most disturbing findings was how few babies are being protected against infection. Only 9% of pregnant women in poor countries are receiving services, such as access to drugs, to help prevent mother-to-child transmission, despite a UNAIDS goal of 80% coverage.

Women’s vulnerability to the disease continues to increase, with more than 17 million women infected worldwide – nearly half the global total – and more than three-quarters of them living in sub-Saharan Africa, the report found.

Stigma and discrimination still plague those infected with the virus worldwide, and young people’s knowledge about HIV/AIDS remains low with less than 50% having adequate information about the disease – a far cry from the 90% target UNAIDS set for 2005.