THE number of people living with HIV worldwide has exceeded 40 million for the first time, with more than 2.6 million adults and nearly 600,000 children dying from the disease in the past year alone.

The Aids Epidemic Update 2005, published yesterday, reveals the extent of the relentless rise of HIV infection. It has now claimed more than 25 million lives since the early 1980s, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in history, with the vast majoriy of cases being in the developing world.

The report, by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), estimated that globally there will be an extra five million infections in 2005.

Only a handful of countries have made serious efforts to stop HIV infection, the annual report said. Worldwide, less than one in five people at risk has access to basic prevention services, and only one in ten with HIV has been tested and made aware of infection.

The report said there was evidence that adult HIV infection rates had decreased in some countries, with measures such as increased use of condoms and people being urged to have fewer sexual partners playing a part; but the overall trend is an increase in HIV transmissions, with experts saying that far greater prevention efforts are needed to slow the epidemic.

Figures in the report estimated that there were 7,258 diagnoses of HIV in Britain in 2004 — up from 7,076 in 2003 and more than double the 3,499 reported in 2000.

One of the reasons for this was more testing, but most of the increase was due to a steep rise in heterosexually acquired HIV infections, about 80 per cent of which were contracted in high-prevalence countries such as those in Africa.

Sex between men still accounts for about a quarter of HIV diagnoses in Britain. Previous figures have sugges-ted that there are an estimated 60,000 people living with HIV in Britain, with about 27 per cent of these thought to be undiagnosed.

The rise will be confirmed later this week when the Health Protection Agency publishes figures on the latest British trends in HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

The report said that the steepest increases in HIV infections had occurred in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and East Asia; but sub-Saharan Africa continued to be the most affected part of the world, with 64 per cent of infections occurring there — more than three million people.

Progress was made in Kenya, Zimbabwe and some countries in the Caribbean. Adult infection rates in Kenya have dropped from a peak of 10 per cent in the late 1990s to 7 per cent in 2003. HIV rates in pregnant women in Zimbabwe also fell over the past two years.

In Western and Central Europe, an estimated 720,000 people are now infected with HIV — up from 700,000 in 2003. It is estimated that there will be 65,000 infections this year, with 30,000 deaths due to Aids-related illnesses.

UNAids and the WHO said that greater efforts were needed if rates of HIV were to decrease.

Peter Piot, executive director of UNAids, said that he was encouraged by the fact that sustained HIV prevention programmes had played a key part in bringing down infections in some countries, but the reality was that Aids was still outstripping global efforts to contain it.

“It is clear that a rapid increase in the scale and scope of HIV prevention programmes is urgently needed,” Dr Piot said. “We must move from small projects with short-term horizons to long-term, comprehensive strategies.”

Nick Partridge, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, said that while concerted efforts were needed globally to contain the epidemic, Britain needed to focus particularly on safer sex campaigns for gay men and African people.

The report also said that access to HIV treatment had improved markedly in the past two years. It said that more than one million people in low and middle-income countries were now living longer lives because of antiretroviral treatment. An estimated 250,000 to 350,000 deaths were averted this year because of increased access to HIV treatment.

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