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New HIV Infections Are in Decline Thanks to More Access to Treatment

While population of those living with HIV/AIDS continues to grow, the decreased rate of growth is heartening.
An aid worker checking a USAID-funded stock of HIV medicine in Lagos, Nigeria

Increasing access to HIV treatment worldwide has led to decreased levels of infection and AIDS-related deaths in the last year, according to the UN's annual report. The 2012 statistics do show that more people than ever are living with HIV worldwide, but infection rates continue to trend downward while the number of people with access to treatment is growing.

The basic overview from UNAID's stats:

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  • 2.3 million people became infected in 2012, down 33 percent since 2001.
  • That number was 260,000 for children, down 52 percent since 2001. (Children can contract HIV from breastfeeding.) 
  • AIDS-related deaths peaked in 2005 with 2.3 million worldwide; they've since declined to 1.6 million in 2012.
  • Overall, 35.3 million people worldwide were HIV positive in 2012, up from 30 million in 2001.
  • People in low- and middle-income countries have increased access to HIV treatment, with 9.7 million people receiving access in 2012, up from 1.3 million in 2005.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world's HIV hot spot, with 25 million people living with the disease in 2012. Asia is a distant second, but has a higher mortality rate—close to six percent of the 3.9 HIV-positive people in southeast Asia died in 2012. North America had 1.3 million people living with HIV last year.

While population of those living with HIV/AIDS continues to grow, the decreased rate of growth is heartening, and it is likely driven by efforts to increase availability of education and treatment. In 2011, the UN states agreed to try and get treatment to 15 million people in low- and middle-income countries by 2015, and the effort appears to be on track.

That's been backed by global funding that reached $18.9 billion last year, 53 percent of which came from individual countries and the rest largest through donations. The 2015 treatment goal would require around $22 billion to $24 billion, but that's only a first step.

"Not only can we meet the 2015 target of 15 million people on HIV treatment, we must also go beyond and have the vision and commitment to ensure no one is left behind," UNAIDS executive directo Michel Sidibé said in a statement.

Meanwhile, prevention and treatment breakthroughs are continuing to come forth. A new treatment to reduce transmissibility in drug users has loads of potential, while new efforts to bolster the immune system also show promise. Perhaps most interestingly, the FDA approved its first HIV vaccine, Truvada. The only problem is that it's extremely costly. At around $10,000 a year for daily treatment, Truvada is far out of the reach of most of the world's HIV hotspots, which highlights an essential problem with the HIV fight: It's a disease that largely afflicts the world's poor, and treatment is expensive. But as the UN's commitment to funding shows, spending that money can help slow the epidemic.

@derektmead