Apathy Over AIDS Could Prove Deadly

Nov. 26, 2007— -- Disease experts worry that a United Nations report that suggests the AIDS epidemic is waning could spark a false sense of security among those most at risk.

Recent numbers from the UNAIDS report hints that the AIDS epidemic may be in its final stage -- that is, it may be beginning to burn out.

However, infectious disease experts across the nation strongly disagreed and warned that that the AIDS epidemic is far from over. They emphasize that the AIDS epidemic is still active.

Their fear is that people who hear of the report will take it as a cue to relax treatment and prevention efforts, which is exactly the opposite of what needs to be done.

"The concern is donors will see these new estimates as reason to relax their response on AIDS," says Christopher Collins, a member of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition. "That would be a terrible mistake. We are seeing concrete results from prevention and treatment programming -- this is no time to pull back.

"Instead, we need to scale up AIDS prevention and treatment and continue to make progress on what remains a devastating epidemic."

According to the UNAIDS report, the rate of new infections peaked globally in the late 1990s at more than 3 million per year. Today that rate has declined to about 2.5 million new infections annually. UNAIDS is the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, and is the branch of the world body responsible for the organization's AIDS-related programs.