As funds for AIDS programmes from developed nations gradually dry up, middle- and low-income countries are rising to the challenge. Domestic investments by BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) for the disease have increased by almost 120 per cent between 2006 and 2011, according to a new report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS or UNAIDS. These countries now fund, on average, more than 75 per cent of their domestic AIDS responses.
The report, titled 'Together we will end AIDS', was launched in the US ahead of the international AIDS conference that is being held in Washington DC between July 22 and July 27.
| HIV AT A GLANCE
- An estimated 34.2 million people in the world were living with HIV in 2011
- In 2011, eight million people had access to life-saving treatment in low- and middle-income countries—an increase of 1.4 million over 2010
- 2.5 million people were newly infected with HIV;100, 000 fewer than the 2.6 million new infections in 2010
- Since 2009, new infections in children have fallen by an estimated 24 per cent
- Some 330 000 children were newly infected in 2011, almost half than at the peak of the epidemic in 2003 (570, 000) Globally, young women between 15 and 24 years of age remain the most vulnerable to HIV, and an estimated 1.2 million women and girls were newly infected with HIV in 2011
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All’s not well