New HIV Cases In India Reduced By 20%, AIDS Epidemic To End By 2030: UN Report

Between 2000 and 2014, India has been able to achieve a decline in new HIV infections, HIV-TB cases according to a UN report.

Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) released the report titled, "How AIDS changed everything - MDG 6: 15 years, 15 lesson of hope from the AIDS response.”

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The world is on track to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as it had exceeded the targets contained in the Millennium Development Goals (MGD) to halt and reverse the spread of HIV.

New HIV infections have fallen by 35% and AIDS-related deaths by 41%. The global response to HIV has ward off 30 million new infections and nearly 8 million AIDS-related deaths since 2000.

"The measure of success for the United Nations is not what we promise, but what we deliver for those who need us most. When it comes to halting and beginning to reverse the AIDS epidemic, the world has delivered," said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

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Ban said 15 million people on HIV treatment meant that the world was on its way to an AIDS-free generation. It also means that nearly 75% of all pregnant women living with HIV have access to antiretroviral medicines that improve the quality of their lives and protect their children from HIV.

The report noted that India literally changed the course of its national HIV epidemic through the use of strategic information that guided its focus to the locations and population approach.

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The Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is brought about by the deadly human immunodeficiency virus. In the USA alone an estimate of 120,000 - 160,000 women are HIV- infected.

"This placed communities at the center of the response through the engagement of non-state actors and centrally managed policy and donor coordination," it said.

HIV treatment coverage for people living with HIV and TB has also increased and in terms of numbers of patients, the largest increases in antiretroviral therapy among people living with both HIV and TB have occurred in India, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.

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"AIDS is an epidemic disease, a potentially preventable, deadly infection for which there is no cure, no vaccine, and it is not under control." - National Commission on AIDS, 1993.

India accounts for more than 60% of the Asia Pacific region's people living with HIV-associated TB. The Indian government had also succeeded in preserving the legislative and policy spaces that permit Indian companies that make generic medicines to consolidate their exporting capacities to other developing countries.

Source-Medindia