New HIV/AIDS Infections Outpace Treatment
Pastor Dale Morgan
New HIV/AIDS Infections Outpace Treatment*
By MERAIAH FOLEY,
Associated Press Writer AP - Monday, July 23
SYDNEY, Australia - Access to life-extending HIV/AIDS drugs in
developing countries has improved during the past three years, but new
infections still dramatically outpace efforts to bring treatment to
patients, health officials said Monday.
Three years ago, fewer than 300,000 people in the developing world were
receiving the anti-retroviral drugs that help treat the virus. Last
year, 2.2 million people in developing countries received the drugs,
according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"However, for every one person that you put in therapy, six new people
get infected. So we're losing that game, the numbers game," Fauci told
Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
In many parts of the developing world where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is
still growing exponentially, effective prevention strategies _ such as
condom distribution, needle exchanges and basic education about the
disease _ reach less than 15 percent of the population.
"The proven prevention modalities are not accessible to any substantial
proportion of the people who need them," said Fauci, one of the keynote
speakers at the Fourth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV
Pathogenesis and Treatment in Sydney, Australia, which runs through
Wednesday.
"Although we are making major improvements in the access to drugs,
clearly prevention must be addressed in a very forceful way," he added.
According to recent World Health Organization statistics, only 28
percent of the world's HIV/AIDS patients are receiving anti-retroviral
drugs.
Dr. Brian Gazzard, chairman of the British HIV Association, said that
while great advances have been made in extending access to
anti-retrovirals, the disease is still running rampant in parts of Asia
and Africa.
"The HIV epidemic is essentially uncontrolled, uncontrolled in Africa,
uncontrolled completely in Asia right now," he told reporters at the
conference, which has drawn 5,000 delegates from 133 countries. "The
epidemic still is in an exponential growth phase ... and I think that is
likely to continue."