Efforts to halt the spread of HIV show signs of success, but there's still room for improvement, according to a new report.

Around two million people died of AIDS in 2008, bringing the total since the virus was first detected three decades ago to around 25 million. Officials released details of the United Nations study at the 2009 AIDS epidemic update in Shanghai, China, on Tuesday.

Although the number of new infections is slowing, journalists were told, governments must guard against complacency.

Some 2.7 million people became infected with the disease in 2008, bringing the world total to 33.4 million. New infections have fallen by 17 percent over the last eight years, according to the Joint UN program on HIV/AIDS (UNAID).

Prevention is working

"The good news is that we have evidence that the declines we are seeing are due, at least in part, to HIV prevention," UNAID executive director Michel Sidibe said.

He added that some of the greatest progress had been in East Africa, where HIV incidence has fallen by 25 percent since 2001. In South and South East Asia, the incidence of HIV has fallen by 10 percent in the same period.

Sidibe said that better strategies were needed to prevent new infections, which stood at 7,400 a day.

"Any time we are putting two people on treatment, five people are being infected," he said.

"If we do a better job of getting resources and programs to where they will make most impact, quicker progress can be made and more lives saved."

Sidibe also called for an end to laws criminalizing homosexuality and prostitution, which he said drove high-risk groups underground, away from treatment or services.

There was concern in the the report that HIV could play a significant factor in maternal mortality, with around 50,000 deaths of women during or shortly after pregnancy being linked to the virus in southern Africa.

More get treatment

As far as treatment is concerned, UNAID said, more people than ever are now living with the virus because of antiretroviral therapy. This was also the case in many developing countries, the report said.

Although there is no cure, careful combinations of drugs can prolong life substantially.

"We are very much encouraged," said Dr Hiroki Nakatani, lead World Health Organisation official on HIV and AIDS, observing that 42 per cent of those who needed treatment in the developing world were receiving it. But he added that the world still faced "many challenges" in fighting the spread of the virus.

Epidemic stabilizing

At a simultaneous press conference in Geneva it was suggested that the epidemic was stabilizing.

"The data we are seeing confirm this," said UNAIDS deputy executive director Paul De Lay. "It is a combination of decreasing deaths, more people therefore living, adding to the total number of infected and decreasing new infections."

rc/AFP/dpa
Editor: Michael Lawton