Scales tip in AIDS fight as death rates decline, treatment rates rise

Record ID: 903459

  • Title: Scales tip in AIDS fight as death rates decline, treatment rates rise
  • Date: 20th July 2017
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (JULY 20, 2017) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (French) UNAIDS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MICHEL SIBIDE SAYING: "It's been nearly eight or nine years that I have been directing UNAIDS and we have successes everywhere except for in Eastern Europe and Central Africa. It saddens me immensely to observe that numbers in Eastern Europe have continued, over the last six years, to rise regarding new infections, to over 60 percent."
  • Embargoed: 3rd August 2017 13:28
  • Keywords: Paris UNAIDS global report HIV Michel Sibide AIDS anti-retroviral Anne Hidalgo France
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE / LAGOS, NIGERIA / JOHANNESBURG & PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA / MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
  • City: PARIS, FRANCE / LAGOS, NIGERIA / JOHANNESBURG & PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA / MOGADISHU, SOMALIA
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: Health/Medicine
  • Reuters ID: LVA0056QIV0W7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The scales have tipped in the fight against AIDS, with more than half of people infected with HIV now getting treatment and AIDS-related deaths almost halving since 2005, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sibide told a news conference in Paris on Thursday (July 20).
    In its latest global report on the pandemic, which has killed around 35 million people worldwide since it began in the 1980s, the UNAIDS agency said there were particularly encouraging signs in Africa, a continent ravaged by the disease.
    Eastern and southern Africa are leading the way, reducing new HIV infections by nearly 30 percent since 2010, Sibide said. Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe have gone further, cutting new HIV infections by 40 percent or more since 2010.
    And among the most significant impacts of a vast scale-up of HIV testing, treatment and prevention programmes, has been in the reduction of AIDS-related deaths, which have dropped by almost half since 2005.
    Sibide warned, however, that not all regions are making progress. In the Middle East and North Africa, and in eastern Europe and central Asia, AIDS-related deaths have risen by 48 percent and 38 percent respectively, he said, mostly due to HIV-positive patients not getting access to treatment.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register