The fight to combat AIDS

2006 marks the 10th anniversary of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. UNAIDS with its 10 Cosponsors is making a difference.

According to new data in the UNAIDS 2006 Report on the global AIDS epidemic the AIDS epidemic appears to be slowing down globally, but new infections are continuing to increase in certain regions and countries. The report also shows that important progress has been made in country AIDS responses, including increases in funding and access to treatment, and decreases in HIV prevalence among young people in some countries over the past five years.

In Aril 2005, a senior Aids expert has warned that HIV in India is "out of control".
The executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids said that the epidemic in India is spreading rapidly and nothing is being done to stop it.

Richard Feachem warned that India has overtaken South Africa as the country with the most HIV positive patients.

He warned that the epidemic has spread so quickly that India needed to "wake up" and take the problem seriously, otherwise millions of people will die.

For the first time in the UN's history, an HIV infected person will address the United Nations General Assembly, during the 2006 high level meeting on AIDS.