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38 mln people living with HIV worldiwde: UNAIDS report

Xinhua, November 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

There were about 38 million people living with HIV worldwide in 2015, according to a UNAIDS report launched in Namibia's capital Windhoek Monday.

The report titled Get on the Fast-Track: The Life-Cycle Approach to HIV says of the 38 million people, about 18 million are women and 1.8 million are children aged below 15.

Furthermore, the report says in 2015 alone there were more than two million new infections, out of which 150,000 were under the age of 15.

About 1.1 million, the report says, died of AIDS-related illnesses in 2015. Among these, 110,000 were children below 15.

The report states that in sub-Saharan Africa alone there were 5,700 new infections per day in 2015.

According to the report, most countries are getting on the fast-track program that makes sure that those infected are put on treatment without delays.

This has seen 18 million people living with HIV getting treatment by June 2016, including 910,000 children.

"If these efforts are sustained and increased," the reports says, "the world will be on track to achieve the target of 30 million people on treatment by 2020."

In addition, the report says the treatment is working as seen by the number of 5.8 million people aged over 50 whose lives have been extended.

This number, the report says, is projected to increase to 8.5 million people by 2020.

The UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe said there has been remarkable progress around HIV treatment although new threats are emerging.

For example, there were 3.2 million new infections in 2000 but by 2015, the number went down to 2.1 million. The projections are that by 2020, the rate should be down to 0.5 million.

Likewise, the projected number of people living with HIV who should be on treatment by 2020 is 30 million, up from one million in 2000 and 18.2 million last year.

AIDS-related deaths too, the report says, are expected to fall down to 0.5 million by 2020, from 1.1 million in 2015.

Even the forms of treatment, according to the report, have improved from the eight pills per day administered in 2000 to one pill per day in 2015. By 2020, however, the report says that there will be a single injection for three months.

"If we do not act now, we risk resurgence and resistance. We have seen this with TB. We must not make the same mistake," Sidibe said. Enditem