Worldwide AIDS deaths down slightly: UN

The numbers of people dying of AIDS and becoming infected with the HIV virus that causes it have dropped modestly in recent years amid intensified global efforts to fight the disease, a UN agency said overnight.

About 33 million people globally were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 2007, most in Africa, south of the Sahara Desert.

The figure was down from 33.2 million in 2006, the annual United Nations report on the AIDS epidemic said.

The number of AIDS deaths fell for the second straight year, with an estimated 2 million people succumbing to the disease in 2007, according to the report by UNAIDS.

AIDS deaths had climbed steadily through 2005 since the disease was first identified in the early 1980s.

UNAIDS reported last year that 2.1 million people died of AIDS in 2006.

The number of people newly-infected with HIV, which ravages the immune system, fell to 2.7 million in 2007 from 3 million in 2001, the report said.

Sub-Saharan Africa remained the part of the world most heavily impacted by AIDS, with 67 per cent of all people infected with HIV and 72 per cent of deaths occurring in the impoverished region, according to the report.

The report said the number of new HIV infections has fallen in several countries, but rates of new HIV infections are rising in many countries including China, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam.

HIV infections also are increasing in countries like Germany, Britain and Australia, the report said.