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Nearly three in five HIV-positive people worldwide (21.7 million out of a total of 36.9 million) are taking antiretroviral therapy, the highest proportion ever, according to a UNAIDS report released on Wednesday. [19659002]
However, the UN body in charge of the fight against AIDS fired the " alarm bell " on insufficient funding . " There is a shortfall of $ 7 billion a year (…) to enable us to maintain our results ," said its executive director, Michel Sidibé.
In 2017, 36.9 million people in the world lived with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), against 36.3 million in 2016, according to the UNAIDS annual report unveiled in Paris.
And 21, 7 million had access to antiretroviral treatments, which prevent the development of AIDS (against 19.4 million in 2016).
Last year, 940,000 people in the world are dead ] of AIDS-related diseases (990,000 in 2016), according to figures released before the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam (July 23-27).
By way of comparison, at the peak of the epidemic in 2005, 1.9 million deaths worldwide were related to AIDS, and only 2 million HIV carriers (out of 30 million in total)
There were 1.8 million new infections last year, a stable number compared to previous years.
Half of untreated children
These global results hide strong disparities . In West and Central Africa in particular, only 40% of the carriers of the virus have access to treatment.
" Some countries continue to worry, as Nigeria which alone accounts for about half of all new infections in West Africa according to Mr Sidibé
Another source of concern: "The epidemic in Russia is in the process of to become generalized ".
While concentrated on drug-injecting populations, it increasingly affects the general population "said Mr. Sidibé.
pointed out " generally punitive laws ." These prevent " to put in place risk reduction policies that would allow these populations who inject drugs to to have access to health services (…) These people are hiding and infecting their partners "
Mr Sidibé also recognized deficiencies in the fight against AIDS among .
" Although 1.4 million new infections have been avoided among children since 2010, we unfortunately find that we have not made enough progress ", he noted.
"We continue to have more than 50% of children who do not have access to treatment and last year there were 110,000 deaths and 180,000 new infections. This is inadmissible, "he added.
After the successes of recent years," we fall asleep on our laurels and we face a crisis of the [19659024] prevention ", estimated the Malian boss of UNAIDS, emphasizing the importance of funding.
" The fear is that the decrease in contributions from international donors does not entail a decrease of internal investments of the affected countries ", he said," at least 44 countries depend to 75% of the international aid to fight the epidemic "
" If these resources are not available, there is a significant risk of rebound of the epidemic, with a risk of increasing resistance and increase in mortality due to AIDS ", he warned.
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